POLL: Is how you Roleplay influenced by your character’s mental stats?

[Ralif Redhammer]

Outside of Dungeon Crawl Classics, anyway.

The feeling of seeing someone with a full deck of 0-level characters just do the bonkers, foolhardy thing with one of them is a glorious one, whether I'm a fellow player or a Judge.

Now, as for my own characters, while stats aren't the end-all, be-all for my personality, I definitely adjust based on the framework that the stats give me. That high charisma, low wisdom dwarven bard will be more blustery, more self-aggrandizing, a little more oblivious. Personality traits I might not have selected but for the numbers of the stats.

 

[bloodtide]

I can't say every game, but I think most like D&D only have one way bonuses. You only get stuff for high ability scores. It's all based off the idea that a higher score is better. But, for mental stats, that is not correct.

Plenty of games tie skill points to intelligence....but that is not exactly how it works. Tons of people have tons of "skill points", but they are not good at logic or math. Plenty of people can rebuild a car, but can't recall where they put the car keys. There are young people with 'old souls' that 'get things', and plenty of older people that are clueless social brutes. The same way a person can have a strong personality, but not be social.

And the whole dark side is a huge monkey wrench: plenty of shady types have a "high charisma" when they are fooling someone, but have no social skills in any other part of their life. And if you take a typical "high charisma" famous person, they will have a hard time doing a con job.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I definitely do it the other way around. If I want to play the character a certain way (a charming, if foolish fellow, for example), then I give him a high CHA and a low WIS.

However, like others have pointed out, in modern game terms, while a 12 INT is smarter than an 8 INT, I doubt that it's a difference that would be all that obvious to people in the world. If they knew the two people well, they might thing that person A is probably smarter than person B, but it's not the difference between one being very clever and the other being a total fool.

Or in other words, there's no reason to play an 8 (or even a 6) INT character as if they are impaired. IMO therein lies playing a caricature, not a character.

 

[pemerton]

For modern D&D, I would say how I roleplay is determined by my concept. When I assign my stats and skills, I'm also basing that on my concept, and on what checks I would expect my concept to either excel or be middling at. So I'm not extrapolating from my stats for my roleplay; how I roleplay the results of a passed or failed check is always filtered through my concept.

You can play a 6 Int character as slow, or you can also just play this as unlettered and unread, or simply uninterested in academic pursuits. For modern D&D, I reject the idea that stats are a "base layer" of natural ability, upon which your character than chooses a class to pursue. It's the overall concept that matters, and class and background and stats are the tools we use to express that concept in game mechanical terms.

That fits with how my group approaches 4e, which I guess counts as a version of "modern D&D"!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

As a tangential aside - almost everyone seems (to think) they know how to play a high or low Intelligence, but generally people have a harder time with a high or low Charisma.

The D&D GAME ITSELF has troubles with what a low Charisma even means. This is evident in how (up until recently), Orcs (and to a lesser extent, Dwarves) often had very low (even penalized) Charisma scores - which somehow made it so they were less INTIMIDATING. The idea, as far as I can tell, was that they were grumpy jerks, which is why the low CHA. But what does that have to do with being intimidating? The problem lies in that Charisma mostly (as time went on - it often had more to do with being good-looking back in the day) became Force of Personality.

Now, a lot of standoffish grumpy jerks have plenty of intimidatingly forceful personalities, just not diplomacy. It would be better, IMO, to penalize (if one were going to) their diplomacy skills (persuasion in 5e terms) rather than their Charisma score. To penalize the latter has the unfortunate side-effect of implying that a standoffish character is also somehow mousy, meek, or wishy-washy.

All of this is a long way of saying - D&D abilities are in no way consistent with real life. Sometimes they represent more than one aspect of an actual person, and actual people can be (and often are) both really bad and really good at the same time on a single D&D ability score. If you want your characters to be at all like real people, they can't be too firmly attached to their ability scores. OTOH, their ability scores shouldn't mean nothing. They should inform some part of how you play the character, but not a straightjacket.

As always, YMMV.

 

[gamerprinter]

I voted "Other". While normally, I could say, "yes" I depend upon my INT score, however, since I tend to play non-magical classes, my INT score is seldom emphasized over other stats needed to optimize a non-magical class. So my INT score is hardly different from PC to PC, and in those cases I act intellectually the same. However, whenever I have a score is largely off from my norm - as in highly intelligent, or grossly low intelligent, such scores greatly affect my character's behavior and interactions. I remember back in 1e days, I ran a barbarian that used a Dungeon magazine barbarian generation tables to build, and some stats like STR or CON, it was difficult to achieve a score below 16. On the other hand CHR was 3d6, and I achieved an 18 for that. However WIS was 4d4, and I achieved a 4. I played that 4 WIS to the hilt. I was a good looking, strong, high constitution barbarian with an average intelligence and the wisdom of a rock. That character was especially memorable. He made unwise decisions constantly.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think it depends on the game. And I think that even of someone wanted to fully embrace the numbers as determining how to roleplay the character, there’s plenty of ways to interpret the numbers. I don’t think there’s only one way to play a character with X score in stat Y.

I’m currently playing in a Dogs in the Vineyard game, and my character is a bit of a dummy. This is mostly represented in his lower Acuity stat. He’s young and a bit naive and simple. I play him as such. But it’s more about approaching things from a simple and direct angle. I haven’t needed to do more than that to get the feel I’m going for.

And, he actually recently increased his Acuity stat. He’s gotten into some situations that were kind of beyond him to handle, and made it through, so I figure he’s learning a bit. His two companions are both sharper than he is, too, so perhaps they’re rubbing off on him.

 

[pemerton]

he actually recently increased his Acuity stat. He’s gotten into some situations that were kind of beyond him to handle, and made it through, so I figure he’s learning a bit. His two companions are both sharper than he is, too, so perhaps they’re rubbing off on him.

I was reminded of my Torchbearer game: the Dwarven Outcast, whose schtick is blowing things up with explosives and incendiaries, has been hanging out with tricksy bards and Elves. And so has found himself in Trickery conflicts. And so has opened up both Lore Master and Manipulation, despite his own best intentions!

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I take for granted that the stats like intelligence are represented through the corresponding skills, and don't refer to everything we colloquially consider intelligence-- so a lot of education, and knowledge are covered by the intelligence stat, but coming up with a good battle strategy or solving a puzzle is a different kind of intelligence than is meant by the stat. My understanding is that being good at book learning isn't necessarily the same as raw cognitive processing power anyway. This avoids anything that would compromise the fun of the game.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I don't use D&D, I should note in advance, but I have noticed that players seldom match their in-game personality to their abilities.

Then again, I rarely see race being portrayed much past the first couple sessions, either.