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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9823620" data-attributes="member: 29398">Because due to both physical limitations and (sometimes) local laws we have to abstract nearly all the physical activities our characters do.  We can't climb walls at the table, nor balance on clifftops, nor throw heavy objects, nor - most importantly - fight each other.  LARPing gets around some of this, but by no means all of it; and with the rarest of exceptions D&D isn't a LARPG.Therefore, the stats relevant to those physical activities are going to meet game mechanics on a frequent and recurring basis in order to carry out these abstractions.  And as such, those stats are very much going to inform play.Players can, however, think and talk* at the table pretty much directly as their characters would in the fiction, with far less abstraction required.  Here, though, in order for the non-physical stats to inform play on a vaguely equal basis with their physical counterparts, it's on the player to not only let that stats-inform-play process occur but to lean into it fairly hard.Otherwise the players might as well just play their real-life personalities in the fiction, which will get pretty boring over the long term.* - with all the in-fiction languages conveniently translated to English or whatever other language is spoken at the table, of course.</blockquote>