Should stats have any bearing on roleplay?

[Leatherhead]

I'd say the problem lies with intelligence being a rolled stat, not with RPGs in general. In my system PCs are as smart as the players want to play them to be. It avoids all these issues of intelligent players rping blockheads or blockheads rping geniuses.

That's only part of why it is metagamey. The other part of puzzles requires the players to have run into the solutions (or something similar) in real life. Especially when you are dealing with wordplay or math puzzles, those are the worst offenders of this kind of thing.

 

[Hautamaki]

That's only part of why it is metagamey. The other part of puzzles requires the players to have run into the solutions (or something similar) in real life. Especially when you are dealing with wordplay or math puzzles, those are the worst offenders of this kind of thing.

Yeah, anachronistic or otherwise out-of-place puzzles bother me too so I do try to stick to puzzles that could reasonably have been created (and solved) by a denizen of my world.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

The problem falls back to an age old one. The fighter, or barbarian, whose powergames his stats to 18,18,18,6,6,6. He is a monster in combat because that is how the dice roll, yet he "roleplays" far beyond his stats.

If your going to allow this then why have any mental stats, or social skills at all?

 

[Umbran]

True, but with a problem like the one described, once the solution is blurted out, the puzzle is solved.

So, why did you use it? If you've got a smart player playing a dumb character, it's problematic. If you don't have a really observant math geek, it is also problematic. Sounds to me like a bad design choice to begin with.

The issue here is that in the situation described, the puzzle is a challenge for the players, not for the characters. If the problem is that a player isn't playing the stats, you could work to change the player. Or, the GM could just structure things such that in the end, the challenge is more for the characters than the players.

I am saying some structures may not be appropriate for your group if the players don't role-play their stats strongly. If you've got a smart player who thought he could use Int as a dump stat, don't give them (many) puzzles that solve entire situations on their own in the first place.

While the idea works in most systems, I'll use 4e terms: Don't just hand the players a puzzle. Put them in a skill challenge in which the players solving the puzzle gives them a bonus.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The fighter, or barbarian, whose powergames his stats to 18,18,18,6,6,6

I've played a fighter with those stats- Bear- but I RPed those stats, too. Very satisfying PC to play.

So, why did you use it?

The Fibonacci doors is one I just made up from whole cloth to illustrate a point of what can happen when a smart player with a dumb PC refuses to RP his PC's Int.

Were I a control freak, thee are certain players I just wouldn't let play low-Int PCs because they'd invariably use Int as a dump stat...and still play smart. But I'm not that guy.

Plus, I've more often seen it as fellow player than as a GM...still annoying, though.

 

[Neonchameleon]

On a complete tangent, there's a fourth stat that to me refers to intelligence. Dexterity. It's the stat for being good with your hands and fast thinking (hence the initiative bonus). Not tied to planning, but able to react fast and to see opportunities before other people do. Also to solve pieces of metal joined together or other such pesky problems. (My Zeitgeist playtest character fits this category - Dex 18, wis and int only above average. She doesn't plan well but pulls clever but reckless tricks on the spur of the moment.)

 

[Dausuul]

The problem falls back to an age old one. The fighter, or barbarian, whose powergames his stats to 18,18,18,6,6,6. He is a monster in combat because that is how the dice roll, yet he "roleplays" far beyond his stats.

If your going to allow this then why have any mental stats, or social skills at all?

Because the stats inform the rest of the mechanics. I simply prefer to leave it at that, rather than trying to turn the stats into a constraint on the player's roleplaying. I don't like imposing such constraints, either by DM fiat ("You can't do that, your Intelligence is too low") or by social pressure ("You know, your Intelligence is pretty low, do you really think you could come up with that idea?").

If you put a 6 in Charisma, you can act as charming as you like, but you'll botch your social skill checks, so you come off as insincere and NPCs respond badly. If you put a 6 in Intelligence, you can act clever, but you'll botch your knowledge checks, so your access to information is limited. (This is why I prefer to think of Intelligence as "book-learning" rather than general smarts.) If you put a 6 in Wisdom, you can be thoughtful and intuitive, but you'll botch Insight and Perception, so you don't pick up on what's going on around you.

The party wizard can dump Strength and the only consequence is a few mechanical penalties, none of which have much impact on the wizard. Why should the fighter who dumps Intelligence be saddled with a lot of crippling RP restrictions? Let the mechanics take care of themselves.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I think it's worth pointing out a game mechanic which has a major impact on how sensible it is to roleplay your character stats: point buy.

If you're playing on a system where you roll for your stats, roleplaying those stats can actually be fun and interesting. I rolled a 6 for INT but an 18 for CHA. Whoops! Roleplaying that out could be a fun challenge.

But if you're using point buy, you already know what stats you're getting. Hey, your fighter is high on STR and low on INT. Shocking, I know!

Sarcasm aside, your point buy fighter is going to have the same stats as every other fighter built using the same system, with minor variations (maybe you have a little more CON and the other guy has a little more WIS, but it's probably only a couple points difference either way). If you require your players to closely roleplay their stats, basically every fighter will be roughly the same.

When you're rolling randomly for them, ability scores are an opportunity for roleplay. When you're using point buy, they're a straight jacket.

Since your stats are largely predetermined, you're not going to get to play that intelligent fighter. Fighters need INT as a dump stat. If you pump a lot of points into INT they get no mechanical return, which means it's a lot harder to do their job. Sure, you could gimp yourself in the name of roleplaying, but even if you're okay with that your party may not appreciate the fact that their fighter can't tank.

To be fair, both 3.5 and 4e provide class choices for the 'warrior who fights with brains instead of brawn' archetype. But if you want to go straight fighter, but be SMRT? Well, your stats aren't going to help you.

I think if you run a point-buy-based game you need to let stats be what they are intended to be, mechanical effects, and give your players the freedom to roleplay them or not, as they prefer. They can still be guidelines, 'suggested builds', if you will. But since you're not going to see as nearly as much variation in stats among 4e fighters as you did in 2e fighters, roleplaying ability scores strictly just isn't that exciting.

 

[noretoc]

Don't forget, stats cut both ways.

I HATE it when smart players playing stupid PCs nevertheless do the bulk of the problem-solving:

Player: "The safe/trapped doors in the multi-door rooms follow a Fibonacci sequence! In the next room, the 8th door will be safe, and after that, door #13 is the one we want!"

DM: *grrrrrrrr* "Didn't your character sheet explain your PC's low Int as being the result of accumulated brain damage from repeated head-trauma as a child and young teen?"

I have run into this as a player. I wrote my idea down on a piece of paper and gave it to the other pc with a high intelligence, so in game it came from him. Then my character looked on in confusion while he used big words to explain it.

 

[Umbran]

The Fibonacci doors is one I just made up from whole cloth to illustrate a point of what can happen when a smart player with a dumb PC refuses to RP his PC's Int.

I know. My point is that a GM needs to consider his designs in the light of who his players are. If the fib-door issue did arise in someone's game, who would really be the problem: the player, or the GM who decided to use the doors?

If you are going to challenge the character by way of challenging the player, you ought to consider the player's skills. If the guy playing the party Wizard is also the group's math geek, then maybe the fib-doors are fine. But if the math geek is playing the dumb fighter, and the wizard's player is not so big on math, maybe math-based puzzles are a poor choice for your group, in general.

This is a common issue in live-action games, where you are more often using physical representations for what the characters do: what are the player-activities that correspond to character-activities? In a larp, how should you represent a surgery scene? Do I just make the medic's player roll his medicine skill? That's kinda boring, considering the fighter-characters get to swing fake swords and fire fake guns. If the *player* is known to be knowledgeable on first aid, though, the possibilities open up. Or maybe you can devise something else that is in the medic-player's skills that can stand in for bandaging up an NPC?

Were I a control freak, thee are certain players I just wouldn't let play low-Int PCs because they'd invariably use Int as a dump stat...and still play smart. But I'm not that guy.

My point is that if you were a control freak, there'd be other ways to handle it than saying "no" to the player. Don't put in fib-doors. Put in a puzzle that is equivalent to fib-doors that gives the PCs a bonus on a Knowledge: Arcana check to manipulate arcane runes that disarm a trap, for instance. So, maybe the dumb fighter solves the puzzle. He doesn't solve the whole situation himself by doing so.