NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6846200" data-attributes="member: 42582">I did not state such things. What I did say was that the existence of mechanical penalties or prohibitions resulting from a low stat does not "impl[y] that the player him-/herself has to take responsibility for limiting his/her PC in certain ways, any more than if the PC had a 5 STR."A player whose PC has 5 STR has always been free to declare "I try and bend the bars". It is the GM's job to say whether or not this succeeds (or perhaps to set a required roll). S/he is not expected to police his/her own action declarations.If the player of the weak PC doesn't want to make such action declarations of course that is his/her prerogative; mutatis mutandis for the player of the PC with 5 INT.If your PC's goal is X, and you declare an action that will thwart X, then that action is irrational. If you, as a player, choose to play that way then - subject to the usual caveats about social contract, table harmony etc - that is your prerogative. But I don't think the rules of the game oblige or even expect you to make such irrational action declarations.That is my view - subject to usual caveats such as that the agreed ruleset may already establish many of the mechanical parameters (eg DCs for various tasks, encumbrance rules, etc).My reason for denying that any such implication exists is that I can't see it.I can see it in 2nd ed AD&D, where there is a long discussion of the creation of the PC Rath, and of how a player might play Rath. I think this is one of multiple signs of how AD&D 2nd ed turned the players from driving the game - as they do in Gygaxian D&D and in more contemporary indie-style RPGing - to being participants in a GM-driven game, in which the players' main job is to provide colour through characterisation of their PCs, rather than to drive play by establishing goals for their PCs and then making action declarations in pursuit of those goals.Perhaps it exists in 3E - I don't know that PHB well enough.It is not found in 4e, though, where the affects of a low INT are made pretty clear: a penalty on certain checks/skills, and a prohibition on taking certain feats.It is not found in Moldvay Basic, where low INT is correlated to linguistic ability but not to action declaration more generally.It is not found in 1st ed AD&D, for similar reasons.It may be found in OD&D, depending on the meaning of the passage in Men & Magic that I quoted upthread but that no one other than [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] has commented on.I don't believe it is found in 5e. Yes, 5e states that low INT means poor reasoning etc. This is in that part of the rules called "Using Ability Scores" which goes on to explain their use in making checks. That does not imply any particular obligation on the player to police him-/herself in respect of action declarations; and the only express discussion of such matters puts that obligation on the GM, not the players.As for the comparison to animals: it's enough to point out that language, in 5e, is not correlated to INT score (unlike some earlier editions); yet linguistic ability is clearly an aspect of intelligence or cognitive ability in the ordinary sense of those terms; and hence INT score, in 5e, does not even approximate to a total description or characterisation of a creature's cognitive or intellectual ability.I don't really know what you mean by "responsibility to the game mechanics". But anyway, what do you think the mechanics are for? I think they're primarily for adjudicating action declarations - and INT figures into this by (i) affecting some die rolls, and (ii) potentially affecting the way the GM permits or frames an action declaration.Good post.As I posted upthread, the answer in my game is "sometimes" - the player of the weak wizard will sometimes decide that some athletic feat is not feasible for his PC.But in general I think it is the GM's job to frame the parameters and feasibility of action declaration, not for the player to police this on his/her own account. I'm not the biggest fan of the GM veto on grounds of the PC's low INT, but at least it makes more sense than the player being obliged to do it him-/herself, or having the GM do it by distorting action declarations.This seems to me just to emphasise the point that the non-problematic ones trigger rules constraints that don't oblige the player to police him-/herself.I don't understand your grounds for saying this.The player chooses to put a 5 into INT. As a result, INT checks, INT saves and the like will be penalised. Much as is the case with STR, DEX etc. That is not "handwaving" anything (a choice, or a stat) away as irrelevant. And the 5 INT will inform the play of the character much as a 5 DEX would: it will affect the player's choice of action declarations (because, everything else being equal, most players are cautions about declaring actions that involve reliance upon mechanically weak elements of the character) and will also affect the resolution of those action declarations (eg by imposing a die penalty, or perhaps influencing the GM's decision as to whether or not a roll is required at all).As I've already posted, I personally have doubts that this sort of veto-ing of action declarations is good for the game. But to me it is at least much clearer what is going on then a rather nebulous insistence that the player be a "good roleplayer". And to that extent is therefore an approach that I find preferable to the insistence upon "good roleplaying".I don't understand why you say that I'm unwilling. I have repeatedly flagged the possibility of the GM vetoing certain action declarations. (I have also explained why I, personally, have doubts that that is good for the game. But that's tangential to the main issue, I think, as it's a fact about my preferences but not a contribution to an understanding of what the game rules require or expect.)This is a bizarre contribution to the discussion which makes no sense to me. It seems a complete non-sequitur.</blockquote>

Verification