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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8488098" data-attributes="member: 82106">I'm assuming that is coming from the people who claim that its 'fine' that there are D&amp;D races which seem to be based on racist views of various real world ethnicities. In that context the argument is so incoherent I won't even give it the time of day, it is just rubbish. Anyway, I don't think all this needs to be any big issue. If I write '11' on my character sheet for CHA or even STR, it isn't really saying a whole lot. In the case of STR maybe I'm fairly bulky and look like I MIGHT have a 14, but I just don't. Perhaps I'm just really out of shape, etc. There's certainly wiggle room there. Likewise my 11 CHA character could be really good looking, he's just socially inept, or a jerk, or maybe even just has a particular upbringing that makes people see him in a bad light. There are a lot of RPGs that started to eschew 'mental' stats even back in the 70's for exactly this kind of reason. It is just really hard to say what exactly they characterize. STR is pretty concrete, you can at the very least explain how it functions. INT? At best it represents a diverse set of attributes which aren't even all closely related to each other in the real world. You can depict it, for sure, in RP, but its very squishy. Its also highly subject to being overridden by player skill, so a lot of games just left it out. Its a pretty valid approach, just not one D&amp;D ever adopted.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8488098, member: 82106"] I'm assuming that is coming from the people who claim that its 'fine' that there are D&D races which seem to be based on racist views of various real world ethnicities. In that context the argument is so incoherent I won't even give it the time of day, it is just rubbish. Anyway, I don't think all this needs to be any big issue. If I write '11' on my character sheet for CHA or even STR, it isn't really saying a whole lot. In the case of STR maybe I'm fairly bulky and look like I MIGHT have a 14, but I just don't. Perhaps I'm just really out of shape, etc. There's certainly wiggle room there. Likewise my 11 CHA character could be really good looking, he's just socially inept, or a jerk, or maybe even just has a particular upbringing that makes people see him in a bad light. There are a lot of RPGs that started to eschew 'mental' stats even back in the 70's for exactly this kind of reason. It is just really hard to say what exactly they characterize. STR is pretty concrete, you can at the very least explain how it functions. INT? At best it represents a diverse set of attributes which aren't even all closely related to each other in the real world. You can depict it, for sure, in RP, but its very squishy. Its also highly subject to being overridden by player skill, so a lot of games just left it out. Its a pretty valid approach, just not one D&D ever adopted. [/QUOTE]

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