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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7597118" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think this is one of the biggest myths or misconceptions in all of table top gaming.  It sounds really appealing, and you can build an obvious superficial argument for why it ought to be so, usually revolving around the players at the table aren't actually able to swing swords with heroic prowess or cast world shaking spells.But defining the character as being able to swing a sword heroically or cast spells heroically turns out to only be scratching the surface of the problem.  You can do that, and it works, but it won't make the character a mighty heroic warrior or a great spellcaster all on its own, because regardless, it requires the input of the player to animate that character and you can't make the player play the character well.  Nor, it turns out, would you even want to do so.And this is precisely the issue.  Combats are themselves a sort of puzzle, and as long as the combat are not pure damage races where the two sides make no choices and simply hammer on each other toe to toe in each round, then the fact that they are a puzzle to solve means that different people will possess different degrees of talent at solving them.  A player can stat out his character as a great battle captain, leader, soldier, and warrior all that he wants, but unless he also possesses great tactical acumen himself, then in play he will be continually frustrated that his mighty character does not create the heroic figure he wants.   As an example, when I was in high school, I was over at my girlfriend's house and I met her younger brother and a friend who were engaged in playing D&D.  I immediately rose in the esteem of the younger brother by evidencing knowledge of his hobby - "My sister has a cool boyfriend, unpossible!" kind of thing.   One of the players was bragging about his character, a 30th level Paladin (cavalier subclass).  Apparently the kids were playing D&D by flipping through the monster manual, selecting an entry, and pitting the entry against this myrmidon of virtue.  The player bragged that he'd also slain many of the foes in the Deities and Demigods.   Amused, I suggested I take over as DM for a short while and run the monsters.   Within a very short order, his previously invincible Paladin was naked and on the verge of death.  The only thing that changed, is that in the encounters I run, I didn't explicitly tell the player what he was facing, nor did I necessarily have all my monsters go toe to toe, nor did the combats occur on featureless arenas lacking in terrain.  Faced with the need to make choices beyond hacking away with his +6 holy avenger every round, the player who had slain deities was struggling to overcome as much as a giant octopus.  That's an extreme case, but in my experience it is typical.  Some players are good combat tacticians.  Others aren't.   Some players are good social tacticians.  Others aren't.  Some players are good at dungeon crawling, have a good sense of direction, exercise care in dungeon hygiene and trap detection, and are good at picking up telegraphed clues in the environment.  Others don't.  Players can improve their player skill through experience, but some times otherwise highly intelligent people just have the sort of mental gaps when it comes to tactics or social skills that a person who his learning disabled might have with regards to math, or one that is dyslexic might struggle more to read.As a DM who has to play every character of every sort, I am made to be keenly aware of my own limitations.  Just because I want to play an NPC who is witty and funny, doesn't in fact mean that I can successfully pull this off.   There is no ability I can put on an NPCs character sheet that will make the PCs actually laugh at my jests and japes.  If I want to be funny, I have to be funny.  The character cannot be.   No amount of charisma on the character sheet can do this for me.  Likewise, if I want an NPC to be perceived as a brilliant mastermind, as the DM I have many tools at my disposal to help me out, but ultimately I still have to plot and plan in such a way that the player's - not their characters - perceive the NPC as a brilliant mastermind.   No amount of INT or INT based skills on the sheet will make the character so if I am not.A player's mind is intrinsically something that extends into the fiction.  If we try to remove the player's mental abilities from the fiction, we reduce the player to a mere observer who is watching the character act without their input.  If we only challenge the character rather than the player, then we have a process the player can experience as vicariously as my now brother in-law's young friend, but in which they are making no real choices and that makes for a very limited 'game'.  As such, the limits of what a player character can be are always constrained by the player's capacities and competencies.</blockquote>

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