Mearls on Balance in D&D

[JohnSnow]

Bonus spells, skill points, Will saves, Spot and Listen checks, Leadership scores? Those stats have lots of in-game effects without forcing them to define the personality of the character.

Did you read my whole post? Or did you miss this part?

Under this theory, you should replace INT, WIS, and CHA with Perception, Willpower, and Magical Aptitude. This is because trying to model reasoning, memory (except for in-game knowledge), cunning or persuasiveness is pointless in this approach, as the player supplies all those things directly.

Other than skill points, which I admit I'd forgotten about, I believe that sentence addresses your entire comment. Your leadership "score" isn't relevant if, as in the case Mallus suggested, the player just roleplays all his character's interactions irrespective of his character's ability scores.

I would contend that, as written, the balance of the attributes assumes that a low charisma character will suck at charisma skills. Charisma will absolutely become a dump stat for most characters if the player's ability to interact with NPCs isn't adversely affected by a low charisma score.

It's funny, but I bet the same people who want their players more involved in "roleplaying" can't figure out why charisma's a dump stat in their games and are upset by it. Like it's that hard to figure out.

 

[Hussar]

Right now. Your character sheet is just a piece of paper. If it it is fun for you to try to answer the riddle, then I give you permission to try to answer the riddle. You should do it.

The character sheet tells you your character's mechanics. By the RAW there is no mechanic for handling riddles. A DM can ad hoc apply an int check to grant hints or solve the riddle, but there is no rule explicitly applicable here. The DM would have to come up with DCs and what happens on success or failure.

Both you and Mallus have said roughly the same thing, so I'll just quote you here.

The problem with this approach is it encourages dump stats and not bothering with anything other than sheer combat power. If I'm encouraged, and Mallus did say that I should be actively encouraged, to ignore my character sheet so long as I'm having fun, then I can pretty much make whatever character I want on paper and then play something entirely different.

If that works for you, then fine. It doesn't for me. The point of an RPG, to me, is to play something that isn't me. I'm not a dumb as dirt orc (at least I don't think so), and I'm certainly no supergenius. But, I can play either one in the game. If I get the benefits of one, I should take the penalties of the other. If I choose to ignore the deficiencies of my character, shouldn't the DM be penalizing me for that?

Even in 1e, the training rules talk about this. If I ignore my character sheet in favour of playing whatever I feel like at the time, I should get penalized at level up time by having to spend much more time and money to level up.

It is not "character versimilitude" for its own sake. It's playing the role you have chosen to play. If you take that high strength low int character, that was your choice. No one forced you to play that character. And, as such, you should actually play THAT character.

 

[hong]

Wasn't Mr. Mearls going to come back and comment here after lunch on Friday, or has the thread strayed too far to be worth it?

I think he's realised there are better things in life than trying to argue with people who say that previous D&D editions didn't focus on combat, or consider "stacking" PCs to be the epitome of roleplaying.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Look, I wasn't bagging on the G series of modules at all. My specific beef was T Foster's assertion that some versions of D&D promote role play.

Ballocks.

No version of D&D, including the current one, give any benefit at all to role play. None. Zip. Zero. 3e gives a glancing nod in the direction with ad hoc xp awards, but, even that's buried at the back of the xp awards section. If I role play my cleric to such heights of wonder than the other players (not their characters, but the actual players) instantly convert to the worship of my diety, the rules give me exactly zero reward.

And it never has.

I would say that this is only true if you consider xp to be the only reward in playing the game.

Back when I was playing 1e and earlier, levelling up happened so slowly and intermittently that gaining xp was only an incidental reward in the adventure. The biggest rewards from the gaming session came from the satisfaction of objectives achieved, perhaps monetary gain and advancement of agendas in the campaign setting.

Thus I found that earlier versions of D&D *did* promote role play, because there were a lot of benefits that you got week-by-week that resulted directly from the role-play actions and interactions. 3e has much more of an emphasis on gaining xp, because the 13.3 encounters to gain a level means that you gain levels much, much more quickly, and the focus has been dramatically drawn to gaining xp... probably at the expense of other aspects (vis. the lack of information in the PHB/DMG about setting up strongholds and other role-play related issues).

Cheers

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I agree with the notion that stunts and challenges should be better codified in D&D, with feats representing those characters with special training in doing it well. That seems totally fair to me. Of course, that means rewriting large parts of the system from scratch.

No, it doesn't!

Like Mearls did (quite successfully, magic aside, IMO) with Iron Heroes.

Again, Iron Heroes simply built on what Mike Mearls had already done in the fully D&D-compatible Book of Iron Might.

 

[Hussar]

I would say that this is only true if you consider xp to be the only reward in playing the game.

Back when I was playing 1e and earlier, levelling up happened so slowly and intermittently that gaining xp was only an incidental reward in the adventure. The biggest rewards from the gaming session came from the satisfaction of objectives achieved, perhaps monetary gain and advancement of agendas in the campaign setting.

Thus I found that earlier versions of D&D *did* promote role play, because there were a lot of benefits that you got week-by-week that resulted directly from the role-play actions and interactions. 3e has much more of an emphasis on gaining xp, because the 13.3 encounters to gain a level means that you gain levels much, much more quickly, and the focus has been dramatically drawn to gaining xp... probably at the expense of other aspects (vis. the lack of information in the PHB/DMG about setting up strongholds and other role-play related issues).

Cheers

Again, I did say that YMMV. I found that we leveled up at just about the same speed in 1e as we did in 3e - about a level every 4-6 sessions. I've also played in 3e games where we leveled up exactly twice in 12 months of sessions - a very high rp, low combat game. We played mostly modules and used the treasure tables as written, so, xp was pretty fast and furious. One year saw us at about 10th level every campaign.

The other bits you talk about - castles, campaign goodies and the like - have nothing to do with the mechanics. The mechanics didn't reward you with that, the DM did. Mechanically speaking, your rewards were completely outside of the scope of the rules for the most part. Feeling great that you managed to woo the princess is fine. And commendable. But, the game had nothing to do with that.

I'm sorry, but no. No edition actually promotes role play to any great amount. No edition actually rewards role play. Any reward you gained through role play was entirely the result of the DM giving you bennies. The mechanics couldn't care less if you so much as name your character.

 

[Mallus]

People who advocate chucking interaction skills, search skills, and everything but the combat resolution rules should also chuck Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma as attributes.

To be clear, I don't advocate chucking 'everything but the combat resolution rules'. What I advocate (and if I wasn't clear about this, my bad), is basically alternating between using the written task resolution system and DM fiat for things like social encounters, puzzles, and such. So that everyone gets a chance to enjoy, well, what they enjoy, be it solving problems themselves, or solving them through their characters abilities and a die roll.

What prevents a player in your game from putting all his stat points into the physical attributes (maybe some for WIS for that WILL save) and just "roleplaying" away his mental deficiencies?

Absolutely nothing.

It doesn't mean entertainingly coming up with the "right answer" to a puzzle because "you're so smart."

That sounds suspiciously like "Roleplaying games aren't about enjoying playing roleplaying games".

The only fair solution is to make the player's stats the same as the character's. Otherwise, you've chucked the system balance out the window.

Worrying about game balance being threatened by dump-statting and suave CHR 6 barbarians is a bit like worrying about a hangnail after being shot several times in the chest.

This is because trying to model reasoning, memory (except for in-game knowledge), cunning or persuasiveness is pointless in this approach, as the player supplies all those things directly.

I don't have the PHB with me (at work), but isn't 'that approach' exactly what's described in the section on ability scores?

That's a potentially interesting game, but it ain't D&D.

I'd argue that it's always been D&D.

 

[Voadam]

Both you and Mallus have said roughly the same thing, so I'll just quote you here.

The problem with this approach is it encourages dump stats and not bothering with anything other than sheer combat power. If I'm encouraged, and Mallus did say that I should be actively encouraged, to ignore my character sheet so long as I'm having fun, then I can pretty much make whatever character I want on paper and then play something entirely different.

If that works for you, then fine. It doesn't for me. The point of an RPG, to me, is to play something that isn't me. I'm not a dumb as dirt orc (at least I don't think so), and I'm certainly no supergenius. But, I can play either one in the game. If I get the benefits of one, I should take the penalties of the other. If I choose to ignore the deficiencies of my character, shouldn't the DM be penalizing me for that?

Even in 1e, the training rules talk about this. If I ignore my character sheet in favour of playing whatever I feel like at the time, I should get penalized at level up time by having to spend much more time and money to level up.

It is not "character versimilitude" for its own sake. It's playing the role you have chosen to play. If you take that high strength low int character, that was your choice. No one forced you to play that character. And, as such, you should actually play THAT character.

You want to roleplay a dumb orc. Fine. You can do so no matter what your stats are like, that is a characterization you get across through how you portray the character.

I can use simple words and make significant efforts to only do direct actions and pass up anything intellectual like puzzles or approach them simplemindedly, etc. However if you want your character to mechanically be good at a number of his class skills then he needs a high int for the bonus skill points.

High int means the character has bonus skill points, is good at int skills, and determines how powerful his wizard magic will be. Even roleplaying an 18 int character, that does not mean they are brilliant at everything. Portraying them as dense but natural masters of skills works fine.

Conversely a low int character can be someone who is smart but simply not good at skills and so has few mechanical skill points to use.

Same thing for charisma which combines force of personalty and appearance. A strong force of personality but ugly character can fit a high charisma stat, a low charisma stat, or an average charisma stat.

Every stat is a composite and can provide enough room for however you want to roleplay a character. The stats are not monolothic descriptors that tell you the one way your character should be played.

Playing smart and social should not be limited to certain mechanical character builds IMO.

Mechanically paladins and sorcerers want charisma for character power. Wizards and anybody who wants extra skill points want intelligence. Non melee, non heavy armor characters do not need high strength and mechanically benefit from putting their points elsewhere. Some classes and character types benefit from different mechanical stats differently. I think the game is balanced mechanically without requiring roleplay to map directly to the mental stats. That just limits playing smart, talkative characters to certain builds.

In my 16th level game the paladin's highest stat is charisma, but he has put no points into diplomacy or other social skills and everyone cringes when he interacts with NPCs as he plays the usually ignorant but righteously arrogant and abrasive paladin full blast. He has amazing saves though, can heal a ton, turn really well, and smite for a lot of damage. Mechanically he is probably the toughest in the party, due in part to his significant charisma score.

This does encourage all players to design the mechanics of their characters to be powerful. Nobody makes a high int, high charisma fighter who is worse at fighting, simply because they want their fighter to be a Roy Greenleaf type smart leader. To take an OotS example the choice is not between a mechanically gimped Roy and a mechanically maxed out Thog. Roy and Thog are both viable roleplay choices that make the game fun and the character power should be the same for both. When Roy and Thog are compared for combat they should be about equal if of the same level.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm sorry, but no. No edition actually promotes role play to any great amount. No edition actually rewards role play. Any reward you gained through role play was entirely the result of the DM giving you bennies. The mechanics couldn't care less if you so much as name your character.

It seems that we are working by different definitions then, as it appears that you still consider mechanical rewards to be the only rewards in the game. What you call 'the DM giving you bennies' (whatever they are), I call playing D&D.

Cheers

 

[Henry]

What you call 'the DM giving you bennies' (whatever they are), I call playing D&D.

Bennies = shorthand for "fringe benefits"

If you're looking at mechanical rules only, I'd say it's pretty true - D&D originally only pushed things insofar as how you interacted with the physical world. However, I'd argue that since the advent of more detailed skill systems, some elements of roleplay have been rewarded through mechanical benefits. Roleplaying a charismatic speaker in D&D ain't going to get you very far unless that character is maxed out in Diplomacy, Bluff, etc. A character who claims to be the world's best smith needs to have loaded up on Craft skills, skill focus, etc. or he simply can't do what he claims.

What the poster might be thinking of here are games like Shadows of Yesterday, an RPG where strong character motivations directly translate into hard Experience Points, in the form of Major and Minor "Keys." Have a "key" of "protects friends at all costs," and you get more powerful as a character for doing just that. You can even buy off and trade out "Keys" when you want your PC to go through some life-altering event.