I want a system for stats and rolling for mental/social challenges, and I really don't want rousing speeches at the table. But I don't think it's enough in social settings to say "I investigate it" or "I persuade them" any more than it is to say "I attack" without saying what you're attacking with and who you're attacking, and things like flanking and using movement to get out of range or the like mattering. I go to the estate and ask questions feels different than I go to the front door and harangue the butler which feels different from trying to bribe the delivery person into letting you make the run so you can try to pick up gossip from the servants.
One of my reasons for diliking INT, WIS, CHR is that the worldview that would come from boiling each of those down to a single number (picture the insult tied to lacking one of those) in the real world annoys me a lot more than doing the same thing with the physical ones (picture the insult tied to lacking one of those). If I imagine groups of kids giving stats to the other kids in their high school - it's the handing out of the mental three that feels particularly gross. And I wonder if it's setting it up where a kid thinks they're only 6 INT and 5 CHR in real life and will never do well at anything in school or have real friends. I think I'd rather have everything except perception and willpower sluffed off to the skills (different macro fields of study, different macro social skills, etc...) with just a +0 as the base of one of the remaining abilities didn't matter.
This also kind of makes me feel better than the current way the mental three cover different things. Which stat does willpower go with in each addition? Why is someone seductive also good at intimidating the charging ogre into stopping, convincing the king to surrender, be a standup comedian, and able to resist the Ilithid's mind control? (For this thing about ability scores doing too much, dex is the physical one that annoys me most and I would split).
Finally, being human, my brain whatabouts sometimes, and did so when the ableism was brought up above. I'm now wondering how screen reader friendly ENWorld is and how many folks on here give meaningful captions to their posted images. Do we have participants using screen readers so I definitely should start captioning? Would we have more if we all did. And that segues me to thinking about the thread I started on TotM. Does the choice of VTT without ample narration disadvantage some players? From that thread we know that choice of TotM when there is any tactical complexity doesn't work for some. And now I want to Google what the good VTTs do for accessibility.
One of my reasons for diliking INT, WIS, CHR is that the worldview that would come from boiling each of those down to a single number (picture the insult tied to lacking one of those) in the real world annoys me a lot more than doing the same thing with the physical ones (picture the insult tied to lacking one of those). If I imagine groups of kids giving stats to the other kids in their high school - it's the handing out of the mental three that feels particularly gross. And I wonder if it's setting it up where a kid thinks they're only 6 INT and 5 CHR in real life and will never do well at anything in school or have real friends. I think I'd rather have everything except perception and willpower sluffed off to the skills (different macro fields of study, different macro social skills, etc...) with just a +0 as the base of one of the remaining abilities didn't matter.
This also kind of makes me feel better than the current way the mental three cover different things. Which stat does willpower go with in each addition? Why is someone seductive also good at intimidating the charging ogre into stopping, convincing the king to surrender, be a standup comedian, and able to resist the Ilithid's mind control? (For this thing about ability scores doing too much, dex is the physical one that annoys me most and I would split).
Finally, being human, my brain whatabouts sometimes, and did so when the ableism was brought up above. I'm now wondering how screen reader friendly ENWorld is and how many folks on here give meaningful captions to their posted images. Do we have participants using screen readers so I definitely should start captioning? Would we have more if we all did. And that segues me to thinking about the thread I started on TotM. Does the choice of VTT without ample narration disadvantage some players? From that thread we know that choice of TotM when there is any tactical complexity doesn't work for some. And now I want to Google what the good VTTs do for accessibility.
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