Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Should personality or mental stats exist?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9253350" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I've long tried to convince people that there are fundamental differences between mental/social ability scores and physical scores that prevent them from ever being treated the same. That fundamental difference is that a person's/player's real body never intrudes into the imagined game world but that person's/player's real mind of necessity must intrude into the imagined game world, else we don't have a game to play we only have a simulation to observe.</p><p></p><p>It sounds to me from your complaint you have started wrestling with this problem and your solution you are considering is removing the mental stats entirely and just accepting that the player is always present in the character. Some games do indeed do that, and depending on the aesthetics that may be fine. But I do think that is value in the hybrid approach of traditional play.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's a game design issue. It's not really an attribute of the fundamental problem, but an attribute of there not being enough rewards for being a skillful fighter. I think we should set this aside as part of the well known "fighters can't have good stuff" problem and not a problem of mental attributes generally.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Not necessarily either one. If a player wants to play a "dumb lunk" who solves problems, he can lean into this by having his character be the guy who solves problems by not overthinking them or by accidentally hitting on solutions. It's still possible to give the impression of a character that isn't that bright but which still is "lucky" or who cuts gordian knots by simple and direct action. That's just a role-playing challenge. What happens though if you play a dumb character is the characters abilities don't help you. You won't be able to roll for knowledge, lore, insight, investigate, or whatever to get clues. Testing the character's skill will fail, so unlike the player of a Sherlock Holmes you can't lean in on your character's problem-solving ability to get around obstacles nor can you specify a character's intent and rely on their skill to implement a good plan to accomplish that intent. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, this is not a solvable problem whether or not we have mental stats in the game. I talk about this a lot when explaining why RPGs have a combat focus and how that's just about impossible to get away from because combat has unique features shared by almost no other method of problem solving. If you do away with mental/social abilities in the game, you might actually make this problem worse, because now social interaction solely depends on player social skill and in that case why have anyone talk but the party "face" - that is whomever in the group is the most charismatic, social, and extroverted. At least when you have mental/social stats, you can use hybrid approaches and you might have different characters skilled in different social aspects - persuasion, deceit, intimidation, etc.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That would be heavy handed and incorrect, but this isn't a binary problem. There are hybrid approaches. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I mean at some level, absolutely. A player who is shy but playing a high charisma character is asking for a fantasy of themselves as socially capable, so you should definitely be teasing that out of them. I always tell my introvert players to think of the situation like they are telling their character what they want them to say in terms of content, and then that character is taking their words and their intention and rephrasing them and saying them with confidence and savoir faire and as a result NPCs will react to the content of the words entirely differently. That difference is adjudicated through the social mechanics. Similarly, if you are a very charismatic person and playing a low charisma character, what comes out of your mouth won't exactly be what is coming out of the character's mouth - he'll say it wrong, he'll stutter, he'll mess it up. In both cases though I allow the player to set social "tactics" and correct tactics lead to better chances of success. The content of your message matters and will gain you bonuses and penalties based on correctly deducing what the motives and levers are in an NPC. If you can figure out what the NPC wants or what secret they are hiding, you are much more likely to succeed with a social check than if you say the wrong thing that would offend that NPC. That's where player skill comes in, and that's not only unavoidable but IMO desirable.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No, of course not. Having 18 Int doesn't mean you make genius plans all the time and besides which, how would that be fun or edifying?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No, but functionally a 3 Wisdom character is blindly walking into things all the time just by failing perception checks.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 9253350, member: 4937"] I've long tried to convince people that there are fundamental differences between mental/social ability scores and physical scores that prevent them from ever being treated the same. That fundamental difference is that a person's/player's real body never intrudes into the imagined game world but that person's/player's real mind of necessity must intrude into the imagined game world, else we don't have a game to play we only have a simulation to observe. It sounds to me from your complaint you have started wrestling with this problem and your solution you are considering is removing the mental stats entirely and just accepting that the player is always present in the character. Some games do indeed do that, and depending on the aesthetics that may be fine. But I do think that is value in the hybrid approach of traditional play. That's a game design issue. It's not really an attribute of the fundamental problem, but an attribute of there not being enough rewards for being a skillful fighter. I think we should set this aside as part of the well known "fighters can't have good stuff" problem and not a problem of mental attributes generally. Not necessarily either one. If a player wants to play a "dumb lunk" who solves problems, he can lean into this by having his character be the guy who solves problems by not overthinking them or by accidentally hitting on solutions. It's still possible to give the impression of a character that isn't that bright but which still is "lucky" or who cuts gordian knots by simple and direct action. That's just a role-playing challenge. What happens though if you play a dumb character is the characters abilities don't help you. You won't be able to roll for knowledge, lore, insight, investigate, or whatever to get clues. Testing the character's skill will fail, so unlike the player of a Sherlock Holmes you can't lean in on your character's problem-solving ability to get around obstacles nor can you specify a character's intent and rely on their skill to implement a good plan to accomplish that intent. Unfortunately, this is not a solvable problem whether or not we have mental stats in the game. I talk about this a lot when explaining why RPGs have a combat focus and how that's just about impossible to get away from because combat has unique features shared by almost no other method of problem solving. If you do away with mental/social abilities in the game, you might actually make this problem worse, because now social interaction solely depends on player social skill and in that case why have anyone talk but the party "face" - that is whomever in the group is the most charismatic, social, and extroverted. At least when you have mental/social stats, you can use hybrid approaches and you might have different characters skilled in different social aspects - persuasion, deceit, intimidation, etc. That would be heavy handed and incorrect, but this isn't a binary problem. There are hybrid approaches. I mean at some level, absolutely. A player who is shy but playing a high charisma character is asking for a fantasy of themselves as socially capable, so you should definitely be teasing that out of them. I always tell my introvert players to think of the situation like they are telling their character what they want them to say in terms of content, and then that character is taking their words and their intention and rephrasing them and saying them with confidence and savoir faire and as a result NPCs will react to the content of the words entirely differently. That difference is adjudicated through the social mechanics. Similarly, if you are a very charismatic person and playing a low charisma character, what comes out of your mouth won't exactly be what is coming out of the character's mouth - he'll say it wrong, he'll stutter, he'll mess it up. In both cases though I allow the player to set social "tactics" and correct tactics lead to better chances of success. The content of your message matters and will gain you bonuses and penalties based on correctly deducing what the motives and levers are in an NPC. If you can figure out what the NPC wants or what secret they are hiding, you are much more likely to succeed with a social check than if you say the wrong thing that would offend that NPC. That's where player skill comes in, and that's not only unavoidable but IMO desirable. No, of course not. Having 18 Int doesn't mean you make genius plans all the time and besides which, how would that be fun or edifying? No, but functionally a 3 Wisdom character is blindly walking into things all the time just by failing perception checks. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Should personality or mental stats exist?
Top