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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 7020009" data-attributes="member: 6677017">I still find it interesting how different people's experience is with D&D's mental stats. Intelligence is one that some people talk about as rarely coming up in action resolution, whereas it is one of the stats that comes up most often in the exploration pillar in my group (as knowledge checks). Charisma is another one of those. In my game it most often comes up in passively determining how other people respond to your presence. We have some high Charisma characters in our current group, and I describe how they tend to catch people's attention just by being around, whereas I rarely mention that with regards to the average Cha character. I also use it to inform my role-playing of NPC interactions. I rarely use it in checks with dice, but it definitely influences the play experience, and having it there informs how I run the world. By contrast, when my friend runs he asks for Charisma checks all the time when we interact with NPCs.Very useful stats for both of us, though how much they come into mechanical action resolution varies.I agree with that.As you can see in my example above, it isn't about how much it matters in the fiction, it is more about having a touchstone for relevant task resolution. Now, task resolution doesn't have to be via mechanics. It can be a more passive system where stats are just used to give you an idea of what to expect. I came up with a system in D&D to do just that so I could adjudicate what stuff means in the fiction. 8-13 is an average stat, 14-15 is noticeably above average, 16-17 stands out as exceptional, and 18+ is so exceptional you (generally) can't hide it. Run that through your mind a couple times, and you have a great basis for adjudicating without rolls. In my own system the stat actually are (non-numeric, but standardized) descriptors. Normal, Significant, Exceptional, Tremendous (and some below average ones and superhuman ones also). That's all you need for most situations, and dice don't even come into it. However, in a dramatic scene where chance is desired and comparison is called for (either comparison against another character, or against a specific task difficulty) each descriptor has a number that goes along with it, that exists solely for those purposes. At the end of the resolution mechanic, the number is translated back into a descriptor for in-world interpretation.So the main point I'm making is that if there is something that is a normal part of the human experience, and descriptors for it aren't standardized in some manner such that everyone has one and their quality can be compared against others, you find yourself in situations where three characters exist, one of which is called out as "Strong as an ox on steroids", while the other two have nothing that mentions how strong they are. Since I prefer to play at a very zoomed in, first person point of view, that makes it feel less real ("hollow") and way too arbitrary deciding what the different characters can do when it comes up. If one of the undescribed characters arm wrestles the strong guy, it's clear who probably wins. If they arm wrestle each other...?So in my system, for instance, everyone is assumed to be in the Normal range unless they have another one of the standardized notations. You don't even have to write it down. But it's always clear where everyone stands in relationship to everyone else.Now, I think one consideration we haven't brought up that might be informing this is when do you need action resolution? MHRP basically assumes you don't really need it unless something superheroic in nature comes into play. Story-based systems tend to lean in that direction. I like to have a system that is more zoomed in, and can resolve how someone did on a stressful chemistry test, or tell you at a glance what grade they are probably getting in that class if either of those situations came up. The longer the story goes, the more likely such things are to come up. That's probably one of my main dislikes of narrativist leaning systems for long term play--the lack of support for details outside of the considerations of the intended story. I like rules light, but I also like rules there.</blockquote>

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