Should PCs be forced to act a certain way because of their stats?

[Janx]

Let's take one last stab at this beastie.

You're starting a new campaign. We'll stick with 3.5 D&D, just because it's easy.

Player comes to you with his new character. He's all excited about his concept - a brilliant guy who solves problems by talking rather than combat. He's really into Doctor Who and wants to draw his inspiration from that.

You look down at his character sheet and see: Str, Dex, Con, all 18, Int: 8, Wis: 8, Cha 6, and no social skills whatsoever.

Do you accept this character without comment or do you raise questions?

The design compared to the description don't match. The player has made some kind of mistake.

He's got a PC who'd be great at combat and lousy at diplomacy and knowledge. But he's saying the character avoids combat and solves problems and talks his way out of thinggs.

Either talk to the player about his own mismatch, or ignore what the player said and see what the player does.

The reason those stats don't support Dr. Who is because who is persuasive and knowledgeable. This PC would have virtually no skills and no chance at succeeding at any of those kind of skill checks. Something that Dr. Who is expected to do.

Furthermore, with combat oriented attributes, the PC will probably turn to combat to solve his problems, because he's better at it.

It might have made sense for Dr. Who to have a high DEX and CON to avoid being hit and survive "not fighting". But the high STR is an attack stat. The points on it should have been spend on INT, WIS and CHA to bring them up to get some bonuses on knowledge and persuasion skill checks.

 

[The Shaman]

The Shaman's description of the shaky-handed sherrif is very persuasive. But after a few times, the sherrif is going to realize that he can't control the shakes, and the next time he confronts an enemy, his fear could cause him yet again to miss, and the fear compounding the fear that the next time it will cost his life.

Consider that each time the marshal faces his fears, the shakes slowly diminish - which is to say, after each gunfight, his Bravery score increases by a few points, and over time those penalties may turn to bonuses.

This is something that D&D and a number of other roleplaying games model poorly, in my experience.

Do you accept this character without comment or do you raise questions?

"You understand that with a Charisma of six, you're going to take a pretty hefty penalty to your social skills, like Diplomacy and Gather Information, and Intelligence of eight means you will have fewer Knowledge skills, and you'll suffer a penalty to you skills checks for the ones you do have?

"You can play your character as a Dr Who-like savant, but the way your attributes affect the relevant skills, you will not succeed as often as Dr Who does."

 

[Hussar]

So, to all three of you who answered, you agree that stats inform how the character is played.

Thank you. That's all I've been saying all the way along. It's nice when we all agree.

 

[Janx]

So, to all three of you who answered, you agree that stats inform how the character is played.

Thank you. That's all I've been saying all the way along. It's nice when we all agree.

the difference is in how we define the PC by stats and rules ability, not by roleplaying.

If you want to play a PC who pretends to be Dr. Who but sucks at knowing things or convincing people, then those stats are fine.

I can envision an arrangement of stats that does not equal Dr. Who, but justifies a PC who is competently modeled after him

A PC with 14 INT/WIS/CHA and 10 STR/DEX/CON could be a Dr. Who emulated character.

They would have decent persuasion, and able to have knowledge skills.

I would not require or expect the 14s to be higher, even if the real Dr. Who does have 18s.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I'm of the opinion that rpgs which expect Gygaxian-style gamism shouldn't have wide-ranging mental and social attributes such as intelligence, wisdom or charisma. Languages known, bonus to saves versus mind-affecting spells and the like - fine. The problems caused for this kind of gamism by int, wis and cha have been pretty well covered in this thread and its companion.

If a game has a stat such as charisma then I expect that stat to do the job I think it claims to do, both from the name, and the account of it given in the rules. For example, in 3e, "Charisma measures a character's force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness." If a high charisma character is roleplayed in such a way that he possesses none of these features, then, for me, there's a disconnect and either the value of the stat or the character portrayal ought to change.

In the char gen example in Call of Cthulhu, Harvey Walters personality is derived from his stats. "CHA... 17 Whatever his other flaws, Harvey has a sparkling personality." I like this, it makes sense to me. The game stats are telling me something important and interesting about the game world. If game stats aren't telling me anything important then get rid of them. If they have a name that makes them look like they are important and wide-ranging, but they really aren't, then that, imo, is needlessly confusing.

 

[Hussar]

Again, Janx, why do you think I would disagree with that?

The stats of that character, inspired by Dr Who, match expectations. Maybe he's not as good as The Doctor, but, he's still going to be leaning heavily in that direction. Besides, we're playing a character inspired by The Doctor, not the man himself. So harm no foul.

Thus, stats inform play.

Throughout this and other threads, you and others have emphatically stated that the stats don't matter. That the 8 Cha guy can be played exactly the same as the 16 Cha guy. That a portrayal of those two characters could be identical and that would be fine with you.

Yet, when the rubber meets the road, suddenly stats matter. You envision a Dr Who inspired character the same way that I do - high mental and Cha stats and low physical stats. The exact numbers aren't all that important. Close is more than good enough.

Again, it's nice when we agree.

 

[billd91]

Throughout this and other threads, you and others have emphatically stated that the stats don't matter. That the 8 Cha guy can be played exactly the same as the 16 Cha guy. That a portrayal of those two characters could be identical and that would be fine with you.

Yet, when the rubber meets the road, suddenly stats matter. You envision a Dr Who inspired character the same way that I do - high mental and Cha stats and low physical stats. The exact numbers aren't all that important. Close is more than good enough.

Again, it's nice when we agree.

Now hold on there. You can play the two characters pretty much the same. But one should be expected to get better results. You basically get characters who are Dr. Who compared to Cliff Clavin... actually competent and incompetent bluster.

 

[Hussar]

Yes, but Bill91, those are two different characters. No one would mistake Cliff Clavin for Dr. Who.

But, I was told repeatedly that I could play Cliff Clavin and succeed just as well as The Doctor because stats don't matter. That if I make a good speech as a player, my character should get the same results, regardless of his actual stats.

Yet, here we're seeing that the stats actually do result in two very different characters. Cliff Clavin doesn't get the pass, regardless of how well his player speaks. He's still "incompetent bluster".

In The Shaman's example, his cowardly marshal is played in a certain way. Over time, he overcomes the disadvantage and his stats change to reflect that. Again, stats matter.

Using The Shaman's other example, Hubert is not a natural ninja. But, again, over time, he manages to accrue enough skills to become a passable ninja. He's not a great ninja, but, he's still a better ninja than any non-ninja. Again, because his stats matter. His stats inform every aspect of that character - from being a failure to eventually overcoming his inherent challenges.

Again, stats matter. Stats inform play. They certainly don't dictate play and no one has ever claimed that they do. But, the portrayal of any character needs to account for the stats of that character. The entire task resolution system is predicated on that notion. A low stat character will fail more often than a high stat one. However, a low stat character can, through dint of effort, overcome that low stat in order to succeed reasonably often.

However, if you ignore the task resolution systems and simply give the player the pass because of his personal performance, you've sailed off into freeform land. Which is fine if that's what you want. But, it's not the base presumptions of the system that you're playing. ((Presuming of course, that you're not actually playing a freeform system. ))

 

[JamesonCourage]

Now hold on there. You can play the two characters pretty much the same. But one should be expected to get better results. You basically get characters who are Dr. Who compared to Cliff Clavin... actually competent and incompetent bluster.

Except that isn't the case in many scenarios. Many things don't have mechanics tied to them (problem solving, strategy and making plans, unraveling conspiracies, etc.). For example, I think Hussar and I have a problem with a 6 Intelligence and 6 Wisdom character being just as good at the listed traits as an 18 Intelligence and 18 Wisdom character.

Because, to us, stat should inform play. If you have a low Intelligence, you should probably be worse at reasoning, puzzles, math, solving abstract problems, long term strategy, court complexity, and the like. The player in my group is expected to play down in-character (though I'd allow meta communication to a high Intelligence player to someone who can't play up to that).

Some things are mechanically covered, yes, but others aren't. I think Hussar and I prefer it when people try to cover the areas that aren't covered. That is, Intelligence in 3.5 is described as "how well your character learns and reasons" (page 9, and literally the first thing it says in the description of Intelligence). To that end, we'd expect intelligent players to generally tone down their brilliance. I think that's a fair expectation, even if it's not universally shared.

I understand that people might disagree with that play style, but I don't think that I could honestly say (as you seem to be saying) that "the mechanics already cover all the implications of a low ability score." To me, that doesn't hold true. I understand if you disagree, I just don't see a compelling case for why. As always, play what you like

 

[The Shaman]

So, to all three of you who answered, you agree that stats inform how the character is played.

Thank you. That's all I've been saying all the way along. It's nice when we all agree.

Does this go both ways?

. . . Thog the Barbarian may be a savant at tactics and puzzle-solving, but he may not know how to read or write, may never speak another language other than his native tongue, cannot tell the value of the jewel the merchant gave him as payment for guarding the caravan across the wastes, and cannot call upon a deep well of knowledge from previous study, all per the rules for the INT ability.

So, you agree that Thog's player can play Thog as the best tactician in the group and solve puzzles for the party despite having an 8 INT on his character sheet, because the neither tactical acumen nor puzzle-solving ability are covered by the character attributes?