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Message: <blockquote data-quote="T. Foster" data-source="post: 3384213" data-attributes="member: 16574">Maybe I've just been exceptionally lucky in the people I've played rpgs with, but I've never had the kind of "player actions don't match the character's stats" game-breaking problems that seem to be such a big concern in this thread (at least for the last couple pages). In my experience, players are always more than willing to portray low-stat characters as such, even to an exaggerated degree beyond what I would want or expect -- a player with a charisma of 7 or 8 (or lower) is probably going to go out of his way to be gauche and/or offensive when dealing with NPCs, one with an Int or Wis in the same range is likely going to proactively have his character do stupid or rash things, and so on. Such characters generally tend to have short life-expectancies, which isn't usually that disappointing to the player -- the get to have some fun role-playing a doofus for a couple sessions, and then are happy to start fresh with a "real" character (note: I don't use point-buy systems, so when such characters come up it's by chance, not player choice (and if the player really objects to playing such a character to the point I think it'll interfere with his fun I'll usually let him roll a replacement)). For characters with average scores where the players act exceptionally (Int 11 character always solves puzzles, Cha 10 character whose player is a natural diplomat, etc.) I fall back on something like John Snow's (facetious?) suggestion -- that Int actually represents Mnemonic, Wis Willpower, and Cha Personal Magnetism -- the character's a genius at solving puzzles, but doesn't have the memory to learn extra languages or spells, he gives good tactical advice but doesn't have a bonus on saves against spells, he can talk a good game but people aren't naturally drawn toward him. (Alternatively, we also sometimes do what Henry (I think) mentioned earlier, which is to "assign" the success to the character with the best stats regardless of player -- e.g. if Player A solves a riddle but his character is a dwarf with Int 7, we might declare that in-game the riddle was actually solved by Character B, the Int 17 magic-user, even though Player B had nothing to do with solving it; likewise if Player C makes a particularly compelling speech, we might declare "character D (the high-Cha paladin) says that").For characters with very high stats, the same logic applies in reverse -- just because you have a near-eidetic memory doesn't mean you're necessarily good at solving puzzles, you can still be rash or foolish even if you have a strong will and spirit, people are still drawn to you even though you're introverted or socially awkward; and, in the case of Int and Wis, I'll also tend to give extra hints to the players with the high scores -- "maybe you could try doing x," "do you really think that's such a good plan?," etc. (or, alternatively, the character is given credit in-game even when another player is actually responsible for the success).This style of play has worked very well for me as both DM and player across 20+ years and various different player groups (and various different rpg systems as well -- replace stat-names with skill names (Orate, Fast Talk, Spot Hidden, Liaison, Streetwise, etc.) in the above and you've pretty much got how I've always played and DM'd such situations in skill-based games (RQ, CoC, Traveller, Mythus) as well).</blockquote>

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