What's the hardest attribute to effectively role-play?

[DragonLancer]

I just don't see the point of the numbers if they don't inform your character and how you play them. If you're making it up in the moment why bother giving your attributes names that have anything to do with the world?

It's a game first and foremost. Anything you add to that which enhances your role-playing, comes from you. Not everyone does that. I've never known anyone personally who goes that hard on what stats represent to that level. It's not wrong. It's just different play styles.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

“Meat is murder! You should go vegan like me!”

I just had another thought about ethical/healthy eaters in RPGs.

Imagine an Androgum-like/Dark Sun halfling character who only kills things he’s willing to eat…

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One thing that’s surprisingly difficult is playing a character only slightly less capable in some way than yourself. It’s a blurry line, and one that might not raise any flags from your fellow players.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would imagine that quite a few who "play around the numbers", myself included, do so as a strategy for success rather than an attempt to accurately portray the PC's scores. In gameplay, I tend to focus less on portrayal (I mean, I'm not putting on a show for anybody) and more on decision making, which I feel is at the heart of roleplaying.

To me, that seems more about the "G" than the "RP" (not that there's anything wrong with that).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I do refer to the character I created, but, when I do so, it's primarily through my imagination of the character rather than anything on the sheet. I generally don't have a lot of setting information on my character sheet, so, unless you're using setting in an idiosyncratic way to refer to things like ability scores, I'm not sure what you're advocating.

I'm using setting to represent the world your PC was born into and grew up in, where they live and work. The real world informs our real lives immensely, so why wouldn't the setting do the same for our PCs? And that includes your stats, since they only exist relative to other creatures in the setting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's a game first and foremost. Anything you add to that which enhances your role-playing, comes from you. Not everyone does that. I've never known anyone personally who goes that hard on what stats represent to that level. It's not wrong. It's just different play styles.

IMO the RP and the G are on equal footing. Why would it be otherwise?

 

[Nightfly]

I'm not exactly answering the question, but I want to say it's a blast playing low-intelligence characters. One of the unsung benefits of random stats (as Crom intended) is that you can get wretched rolls, which opens up all kinds of roleplaying opportunities. If you've never played a barbarian with INT 4, you don't know what you're missing.

 

[Hriston]

To me, that seems more about the "G" than the "RP" (not that there's anything wrong with that).

I don't think you can separate the two in an RPG. Roleplaying in the sense of an RPG is making your character's decisions for them. It's how you interact with the game.

 

[Hriston]

I'm using setting to represent the world your PC was born into and grew up in, where they live and work. The real world informs our real lives immensely, so why wouldn't the setting do the same for our PCs?

Because the setting and PCs are fictional. There's no actual causality between them that we don't make up.

And that includes your stats, since they only exist relative to other creatures in the setting.

A character's stats are part of the character, and, sure, characters are part of the setting. Beyond that, I'm not sure what your point is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think you can separate the two in an RPG. Roleplaying in the sense of an RPG is making your character's decisions for them. It's how you interact with the game.

It's also how you interact with the setting, and that's very important to me. In fact, it's what makes role-playing an enjoyable activity to me, and wouldn't be worthwhile otherwise.