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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8090823" data-attributes="member: 18">This really seems evasive to me, which is a term I've used repeatedly, because you two have both been avoiding specifics so much. I'm sure you're probably not trying to be evasive, but what specifically, is good about letting a player dumpstat mental stats, ignore those stats in how he portrays the character, then socially manipulate the DM into letting him operate as if his character was extremely good in those stats (quite possibly at the expense of players who are less socially-adept/silver-tongued, but who took PCs who were good at those things)?We can argue over the terminology, of course, but that's a literal description of what is being proposed, as I understand it. And again for me, this isn't theoretical - I've seen people do this, and I've seen it be harmful. It isn't always harmful, of course not. But if it's sustained 100% of the time, then I'm pretty certain it will be. It means that a smarter, more manipulative, more charismatic player (PLAYER, not character) can basically ignore the rules on mental stats to a large extent, so long as they have the right DM.I'm totally down with VARIANT approaches to low stats. For example, in one game I'm in, a character has 8 INT and WIS. The character is not mentally subnormal, as in thick. Instead, she's not a great thinker, distractible, whimsical, and not entirely reasonable nor subject to reason. She's witty, she comes up with snappy retorts and the odd plan, but equally she sometimes does stuff that's unreasonable or foolish or irrational, and she consistently underestimates how annoying she is (not the player - he's a really cool laid-back guy who plays a wide variety of excellently-RP'd characters - but he's good enough that he understands how to make the character be annoying without us being mad at him!).The point is, the low stats are acknowledged and explained and part of the character, not flatly ignored.Further, the roleplay on the character is extremely good, and not always to the advantage of that character. Yeah, if the player has a great idea, they'll find a way to convey it, in character, but equally, sometime, they could have probably worked out a way she did know something or would do the smartest possible thing, but they don't, because it's not really in-character, and that's part of what makes her extremely charming.Those are the sticking points here, for me:1) Ignoring, rather than providing an alternative explanation for, low stats. (alternative to the most simple/obvious one). I genuinely love alternate explanations - I prefer them, even.2) Always going for the maximum advantage for your character/party, and never RPing in a way that might be truer to your character, but not so advantageous.3) The idea that it's okay for people who are IRL smart, manipulative, and so on, to ignore stats, where people who are maybe buff, agile or the like, can't, seems like a bizarre double-standard.What do you mean by this, exactly? I've been playing since 1988, and even I haven't played "all editions" of D&D by the standards I'd use. When did you start playing, year-wise?</blockquote>

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