D&D 5E Weird Interpretations for High/Low Ability Scores

[Maxperson]

Perhaps Spiderman is a bad example then.

Let me rephrase the question:
Without the intervention of magic, can a high Strength character appear normal (instead of burly or athletic or the like)?

I think maybe as high as 14 or 15, but 16 pro
probably not. 18-20 would need some explanation other than wirey.

 

[Yardiff]

Perhaps Spiderman is a bad example then.

Let me rephrase the question:
Without the intervention of magic, can a high Strength character appear normal (instead of burly or athletic or the like)?

What does normal look like? Someone who is 'in shape' does look different than someone who is not, also someone who is not 'in shape' looks different than someone who is completely out of shape.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

What does normal look like? Someone who is 'in shape' does look different than someone who is not, also someone who is not 'in shape' looks different than someone who is completely out of shape.

Particularly if they are wearing clothes. While actors often wear clothes tailored to accentuate their bodies, it isn't always easy to tell who is athletic and who isn't if they're just standing around. Particularly now that Str is less about huge muscles and more about power and athleticism.
Your standard Str 8 person could be quite large, but out of condition: a bit of a couch potato. Stand them next to Bruce Lee (high, but not max Str) and you would probably think that they might be stronger. Until Bruce took his shirt off.

 

[TwoSix]

It's not exact science. It just the general principle that the muscle mass is related to strength so really strong people can be visually be recognised as such. This of course mostly matters for describing NPCs.

What does normal look like? Someone who is 'in shape' does look different than someone who is not, also someone who is not 'in shape' looks different than someone who is completely out of shape.

Not to mention the range of "normal" in a D&D world that has plenty of characters with supernatural origins.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

It's not exact science. It just the general principle that the muscle mass is related to strength so really strong people can be visually be recognised as such. This of course mostly matters for describing NPCs.

What does normal look like? Someone who is 'in shape' does look different than someone who is not, also someone who is not 'in shape' looks different than someone who is completely out of shape.

I think maybe as high as 14 or 15, but 16 pro
probably not. 18-20 would need some explanation other than wirey.

Particularly if they are wearing clothes. While actors often wear clothes tailored to accentuate their bodies, it isn't always easy to tell who is athletic and who isn't if they're just standing around. Particularly now that Str is less about huge muscles and more about power and athleticism.
Your standard Str 8 person could be quite large, but out of condition: a bit of a couch potato. Stand them next to Bruce Lee (high, but not max Str) and you would probably think that they might be stronger. Until Bruce took his shirt off.

Not to mention the range of "normal" in a D&D world that has plenty of characters with supernatural origins.

It seems like many would agree that that there is no precise way to define what someone who has a particular Strength stat necessarily looks like. The book intentionally uses loose language (i.e "might", "usually", "probably") when describing high and low stats because they are not details that are, or even can be, definitively prescribed. Who then determines what a particular stat looks (or sounds, or moves, or thinks) like? Perhaps the table. Perhaps the DM. Perhaps the player. Real world common sense or expectations may prevail. Or game world creativity may prevail. As long as it is not detracting from the fun being had or the memorable stories being woven, I don't see the issue in anyone at the table deciding what the fluff of a stat looks like.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

People started dumping CHA because it didn't have a non-mechanical effect (at least in AD&D times), but rather than simply use more Charisma checks, people started gating character concepts by ability score instead.

That's some nice historical revisionism you've got there!

No. That is not what happened. Concepts have always been gated by ability scores. In 1E/2E (and probably 3E/4E, I haven't checked), the text made it a lot clearer that stats actually meant something, and weren't entirely abstract. This wasn't something that "started" in 5E or whenever.

It's a matter of honest RP, i.e. people actually playing their characters, vs. some people who just decide that they can basically cheat and play some sort of psychic ubermensch, despite their stats. Trying to invalidate my experience of this actually happening with vague handwaving is not very impressive.

You're coming up with this totally nonsensical approach where the DM is dictating what stats mean (never seen that happen), but the reality I've seen for decades is that the group, as a whole, has a shared idea of what stats mean, and a shared idea of when it's okay to use OOC knowledge (rarely, and sparingly, is what I've usually seen), and some people violate that unspoken contract.

The smart play at that point, of course, is to avoid rolling whenever you can and to stack the deck in your favor when you might have to (working together, Inspiration, bardic inspiration, portent, guidance, etc.). But this is smart play even with a high ability score because the d20 is really swingy so what's the meaningful difference at the table? None, I say. Let people pretend to be Int-5 Sherlock how they want to and you portray Int-5 Sherlock how you want. If you somehow can't bring yourself to do that, there's always table rules, I suppose. (Here I'm using the universal "you.")

This sounds to me very much like you're engaging in exactly the kind of system-exploitation I'm talking about, and having @TwoSix deny people can use this to powergame, and you agree with him, then explain how to use it to powergame is pretty hilarious.

"Smart play" here looks awfully similar to "to hell with RP and characters, let's just powergame/exploit things to the max!".

 

[TwoSix]

This sounds to me very much like you're engaging in exactly the kind of system-exploitation I'm talking about, and having @TwoSix deny people can use this to powergame, and you agree with him, then explain how to use it to powergame is pretty hilarious.

That's some nice historical revionism you got going on there, since I said it yesterday. I said the issue being discussed wasn't about powergaming. I never said powergaming couldn't be a factor.

But I'm going to let it go, since you seem to be in one of your churlish moods.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But I'm going to let it go, since you seem to be in one of your churlish moods.

Me, surly? Why I never sir!

If you're not saying powergaming can't be a factor, fair enough - by my experience of this sort of approach to mental stats being used to try and cheese stuff is a big part of why I'm allergic to it (that and that it's solely used with mental stats), and @iserith seems to be describing doing precisely that, as justified as he might feel about it.

@iserith - I kind of get where you're coming from re: stacking the deck and avoiding rolls, because the binary d20 stat check/skill check in 5E is absolutely obnoxious outside combat, but I've seen too much bad behaviour with that too really support it. It is however part of why I no longer run 5E much and mostly play.

I've also seen DMs respond to concerns about it by just making people make practically-constant CHA checks and the like (not me), and that is pretty awful as a solution. I guess the problem is fundamentally with 5E and the wide variance combined with the binary success/fail, and lack of mitigating factors (like Take 10/Take 20) outside of specific class/subclass features.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Me, surly? Why I never sir!

If you're not saying powergaming can't be a factor, fair enough - by my experience of this sort of approach to mental stats being used to try and cheese stuff is a big part of why I'm allergic to it (that and that it's solely used with mental stats), and @iserith seems to be describing doing precisely that, as justified as he might feel about it.

@iserith - I kind of get where you're coming from re: stacking the deck and avoiding rolls, because the binary d20 stat check/skill check in 5E is absolutely obnoxious outside combat, but I've seen too much bad behaviour with that too really support it. It is however part of why I no longer run 5E much and mostly play.

I've also seen DMs respond to concerns about it by just making people make practically-constant CHA checks and the like (not me), and that is pretty awful as a solution. I guess the problem is fundamentally with 5E and the wide variance combined with the binary success/fail, and lack of mitigating factors (like Take 10/Take 20) outside of specific class/subclass features.

Bad behavior of jerks can mess up anything. That should absolutely be dealt with away from the table. Assuming a jerk-free table, these methods work really well to promote the goals of play.

Rolls don’t need to be thought of as binary Success/Fail all the time. Success with a setback often makes an appearance in games in which I DM. Failing forward can also be employed. Even degrees of success/failure can be used. The adjudication of rolls becomes much more of a continuum this way.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Bad behavior of jerks can mess up anything. That should absolutely be dealt with away from the table. Assuming a jerk-free table, these methods work really well to promote the goals of play.

I'm pretty sure the people being jerks here don't think there are, though, and further, this particular problem only manifests when people decide stats don't mean anything (or actively don't exist).

I've played TTRPGs since 1988, and the idea that there's a clear line between "jerks" and everyone else is not one I can support, on that basis. There are some players who are always jerks, and yes, it's easy to get rid of them. But there are also rules-approaches and rules-systems and so on which can temporarily turn otherwise-nice players into jerks. It's even happened to me, and as annoying as I may be here, I'm usually pretty good player I think! (Castle Falkenstein was what temporarily made me a jerk, largely because I hated the setting's assumptions so much - at 42 I would have just said "I'm not playing that", but I wasn't 42).

Rolls don’t need to be thought of as binary Success/Fail all the time. Success with a setback often makes an appearance in games in which I DM. Failing forward can also be employed. Even degrees of success/failure can be used. The adjudication of rolls becomes much more of a continuum this way.

RAW they are pretty much treated as binary success/fail, but even if you don't, you have to make up house rules to do so (failing forward has nothing to do with success/fail binaries, and you see it in games where that isn't the case, it just has to do with planning for the consequences of failed rolls), and the extreme variance of the d20 mechanic remains a problem.