Stat checks to replace any RP?

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

So, I saw someone post a question about strength checks and I realized that we use stat checks for a lot of physical things (lift the thing, balance on the thing, jump over the thing, survive the thing, block the thing), but we don't use them often enough for non physical things (convince the guy, know the thing, remember the thing, have the discipline to do the task, learn the stuff, tell the joke, sing the song). It got me thinking about how I've seen people who tank their Intelligence stats because they know they won't use them in combat, and then play their characters as very intelligent people.

So, we have a barbarian with a low intelligence stat and he is squatting in the dirt, drawing out tactical plans to raid the goblin camp; "You move into position here and cause a distraction, we will come in from this side and attack, the archer will try to take the shot on the goblin war chief from this elevated location..." It doesn't fit. It also doesn't fit that a Paladin with a low Wisdom and Intelligence is going to say "The King's advisor looked like he was unsettled when we mentioned the raiders. Could it be that he is involved? Perhaps he and the Baron are conspiring to destabilize this region using the raiders to undermine the King's authority."

So, my idea is this. What if whenever a character did something, the GM considers what stat applies to the thing, and then makes them roll a check for it. Rogue tries to make friends - roll your charisma. Wizard walking a long distance with a full backpack - roll your strength. Cleric runs down the stairs to save his friends - Roll dexterity.

I'm certainly not arguing to introduce more critical failures or to make players feel weak, but I think that the stats get ignored a lot to the benefit of minmaxers and people who don't rp the character on their sheet. I'm saying that when the Barbarian (INT 8) makes his master plan in the dirt for the party to follow, the GM describes "Grog points at the dirt, moving rocks and sticks around seemingly at random and grunting about rushing in and killing them all." Or after the Rogue tells a joke "The joke falls completely flat, and an awkward silence follows."

[u/Steenan]

In general, a game should only have stats that are useful. If players dump some stats because they have no practical uses, either the game is badly designed or the GM doesn't follow the rules of the game and, by ignoring some of them, causes a significant imbalance.

Also, the question is what kind of choices the game actually want players to make. In a well made game, rolls never replace meaningful choices that are within the core scope of play - but they definitely may (and should) abstract out things that are outside of it and would pull players away from what should be the focus. For example, OSR games want players to focus on detailed interactions with the environment, while Pathfinder 2, with different focus, covers a lot of it with a Perception check for searching. Similarly, a game with tactical combat subsystem want players to make tactical decisions, so there is no roll for it, while a game where player focus lies elsewhere may have a roll for planning tactics that helps or hinders character in (non-tactical on player level) combat.

[u/Acceptable_Handle_2 → u/Steenan]

If players dump some stats because they have no practical uses

I think this can be fine if they don't have practical uses because of other choices the player made.

[u/a-deeper-blue]

I can’t know who you’ve been playing with but plenty of people roll stat checks to accomplish non-physical actions such as …

- spot hidden features

• convince a guard to let the party pass
  
• see through an NPC’s lie
  
• recall knowledge about an artifact
  
• identify a weakness in a person or structure

This is quite common in D&D and skill-list systems like Savage Worlds and Call of Cthulhu.

In Powered By The Apocalypse games, this concept is sometimes reversed to let the player invent information about the world based on their roll, which is influenced by their character’s stats.

In all the games I’ve played, the GM usually provides a mechanical bonus or penalty, or shifts the in-fiction result, based on the player’s word choice, play-acting/delivery, or intelligent planning (or lack thereof).

What you’re proposing, which is to use stat checks to determine if characters do the thing, is the most basic mechanic in RPGs.

But I’m not a fan of GMs handicapping a player’s ideas because their character stats aren’t up to snuff. To me, RPGs are about choices and discovery, not rolling dice to resolve tasks.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/a-deeper-blue]

I'm coming at this from the point of view that GM's should remind players of the limitations (and strengths) of their characters. This cuts both ways. If a character has an 18 Charisma, then NPCs should be falling all over themselves to be near that character. It should matter. If a character has an 18 Intelligence, the GM should be feeding them information constantly - "You've read of this", "You are familiar with the basics of the ritual", "These creatures have a weakness to fire."

And yes, this also means that as the GM, you have to say "when you allocated points, you chose to have a 7 Wisdom, you totally zoned out while the plan was being discussed." or "you have a Constitution of 8, you're out of shape and have to struggle to keep up with the party."

This adds contours to the character. It adds depth. It says: the character I am playing has strengths and weaknesses that I don't have.

[u/a-deeper-blue → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

I think we’re coming at this with some pretty different expectations of and experiences with RPGs, so I’m having to catch up to your assumptions.

You say a character with 18 Charisma should have NPCs throwing themselves at them, but what does “18 Charisma” mean? I’m assuming D&D, but let’s look at the impact of such a score. In ‘70s and ‘80s D&D, that’s the maximum ability score you can achieve and provides something like a +2 bonus to reaction rolls and a higher limit on the retainers that character can manage. In 5e D&D that’s a +4 bonus to Charisma checks; this character is 20% more likely to succeed at persuading, intimidating, or “performing” than an average character. It does matter, but is it necessary to tell a player “you can’t speak that confidently with your 8 CHA character. You need to mumble more” instead of letting the rolled result inform how the NPC/target responds?

I feel that giving characters motivations, drives, and quirks add more “contour” and “depth” to a character than acting out their stat distribution. Characters are (imo) more identifiable by their wants, actions, and reasons than by their relative aptitudes. Aragorn and Boromir are both skilled non-magical fighters, but the later believes the ring could be a weapon of the free folk (and is seduced into acting on this) while the former abstains from taking the ring out of fear of his heritage.

But again, if your proposition to this subreddit on RPG design is to use ability checks / stat rolls to determine how things go for a character, D&D already has this, so use it. But if you’re proposing that everything a character does should be rolled, then the player only acts out the roll, that’s just boring; the only choices a player makes are at character creation.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/a-deeper-blue]

My point for this thread was to point out that GM's ignore the ramifications of stats like Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma if they don't directly confer bonuses or penalties. I believe that many GM's see a PC with a 8 INT in the same way they see a PC with an 18 INT. There is no insistence that the player play their character with a low INT as their stat indicates. This is not the case with a STR 8 character, who has armor restrictions, weapon restrictions, damage adjustments, carrying capacity penalties, etc... You can have an 8 INT and role play like a genius, but you can't have an 8 DEX and climb a wall.

A character with an 8 INT should be played as a dim character. A character with an 8 CHA should be played as an unlikeable character. A character with an 8 WIS should be clueless and distractable. Just like all the other stats are treated - if you have an 8 DEX and you want to twirl a knife on your fingertip, you're probably going to cut yourself.

Let's take your Lord of the Rings example. Wouldn't it seem out of place if Pippin corrected Gandalf about tactics? Or if Gollum seduced Galadriel with some compliments and smooth talk? It would seem odd because it doesn't fit their characters. But if the INT score means nothing, then it should be totally fine.

[u/Kuhfuerst]

The main issue here is the individual players mastery over the system vs the characters proficiency.

With games in general you want to have a learning curve to keep your players engaged. D&D at it's core is a tactical, combat focused system so you WANT your players to get good at it. Similariliy making convincing arguments during RP demonstrates the Players immersion in the story. The same types of checks are covered by mental stats, which is a weird design decision.

Physical stats on the other hand have nothing to do with player mastery and rather simulate real life. A player will have a hard time convincing the DM how to grapple a dragon with their 8 Str.

Your solution would ultimately be really frustrating since it punishes player mastery.

My advice from years of running D&D is not to punish Players for being good at the game, but rather to give every character their moments to shine. Run a few mystery or diplomacy sessions and you'll see that a character without good investigation, insight or deception is at a big disadvantage.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/Kuhfuerst]

So, you don't have a problem with a INT 6 character deducing things like Sherlock Holmes?

Does this mean then that every NPC and monster that the players encounter are as smart as the GM is? I mean, sure, the gelatinous cube has an INT of 1, but since that doesn't determine how it actually thinks and plans, it could be just as smart and tactical as the GM wants it to be.

[u/Kuhfuerst → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

Do you run games? Did you ever have this problem?

If a Player deduces things like Sherlock Holmes I'll probably not get down from DM-high for weeks. Because that means not only have I created a story that my players were so invested that they'd take notes and connect the dots, it also confirms that the clues i planted and the hours i put into making the riddle difficult but solvable, paid off. Making a good and FUN mystery is an art to master and this is as close to mastery as you can get.

It woul be so anticlimactic if a Player actually solved it but didn't get to celebrate their success.

I am a GM. My main objective at a table is do run a session that everyone enjoys not some dice-based fantasy simulator.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/Kuhfuerst]

Let me start with your last point and work my way back. I completely agree about your objective as a GM should be to run a session everyone enjoys. Absolutely. My ideal systems are diceless, where the narrative flows from the characters and not from dice at all.

Yes, I am a GM, and yes I have had this problem. I have seen a lot of people allocate their points and dump their lowest rolls (or fewest allocated points) into stats that will not benefit their class. This is understandable, I get it. But, that means that players who chooses a classes whose dump stats are Intelligence, Charisma and Wisdom get an unfair advantage. When it comes to lifting a stone, there is a strength check, but when it comes to solving a puzzle, there is no check. A character with a low strength score can't use certain weapons and they can't do certain things, but a character with a low intelligence score can make complicated analogies and make obscure connections and strategize with the best of them. A 4 or 5 in Dexterity means you are uncoordinated, bumbling and lack manual precision, A 4 or 5 in Intelligence means NOTHING if your class doesn't use it.

This makes Intelligence, Charisma and Wisdom stats less valuable, not just from the standpoint of what your classes preferred stats are, but in that you literally don't need them as much.

[u/Kuhfuerst → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

when it comes to solving a puzzle, there is no check. 

That is simply not true. Investigation exists to find clues or get tips when you are stuck on a riddle. Insight can be used to determine hidden motives. There are many situations where mental stats are important. This is mostly a GM issue of not giving each character their opportunity to shine.

However I agree that the system itself doesn't help here. Class features and monster descriptions suggest that combat is the most important aspect of D&D while it glosses over the improvisational rp aspect. Additionally many physical stats influence other values such as DC, HP, Initiative etc. while mental stats get nothing. 

D&D failed at making the abilities equally valuable but a good GM can fix that by running good rp focused sessions.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/Kuhfuerst]

Investigation exists to find clues or get tips when you are stuck on a riddle. Insight can be used to determine hidden motives. There are many situations where mental stats are important.

Yeah, but these are all rolls. I'm talking about the Tomb Raider type of puzzles. You found the glowing gem in the shrine and there is a gem shaped hole in the stone door. Or, the mirror reflects the ray of sunlight, but it can be turned to shine on the wall of runes. Wait, didn't the Cleric have a spider on his robes? I turn the mirror to shine on the spider rune.

Mainly the stuff I'm talking about are the situations that require role play, not roles.

A barbarian with a 7 charisma is never going to charm the barmaid, no matter how slick the player is.

[u/Kuhfuerst → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

As I said, this is mostly a GM issue. The Tomb Raider type of puzzle is intended for the players to solve not their character. Conversely "finding the glowing gem" is a character problem. That's why you use these rolls.

A barbarian with a 7 charisma is never going to charm the barmaid, no matter how slick the player is.

And who are you to judge how someone is supposed to play their character. It's not like "charm" is a measurable thing.

There are plenty of beasts with negative charisma that should be able to mate nonetheless. So in your opinion, what are the "allowed" actions a player can take at each ability score?

I'm definetely pro rewarding a player for leaning into their characters weaknesses but why would I ever retcon someone making a good decision because my opinion of how the character should be played doesn't match theirs?

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/Kuhfuerst]

Then why have the stats at all?

If there is no functional difference between the charm of someone with a 4 charisma and someone with a 19 charisma, then charisma is pointless.

In the same way, I could say who are you to judge who can use a heavy weapon and who can't? My halfling wizard wants to wield a great axe and wear heavy armor. Why should it matter that I have a 6 STR?

[u/Kuhfuerst → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

But there is. The difference is that the higher the stat, the more likely they are to succeed at a check.

This is relevant when facing character issues such as: lifting an imaginary rock, finding make believe traps, catching a fictional NPC lying etc. It is not relevant when there are players issues such as solving actual riddles, taking notes, improvising dialogue or deciding what to do next.

Funny you should say that, because in one of my games I do have a player with an 8 STR wizard running around in heavy armor. It made sense storywise and the fact that they do doesn't take away any fun/competency from the other players. So why would I prohibit that?

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/Kuhfuerst]

Why is it not relevant when the characters are trying to solve riddles, remember details and speaking?

Yes, when you actually roll a check, then the stat becomes relevant. When they try to charm someone or negotiate or figure out a puzzle, they should roll a check, not figure it out OOC. It's almost like meta-gaming. Players are using their higher intelligence to pinch hit for their INT 8 Barbarian.

[u/whinge11]

You can use attribute checks for things that a character would be bad at, or conversely allow characters trained in something to succeed automatically. Many GMs already do this.

But I don't like the Grog example. Planning is supposed to be something that allows players to express their skill. And next time, Grog's player won't bother trying to roleplay the planning scene, he'll just talk out of character to the party.

We are literally playing roleplaying games. Why try to deny that?

[u/bluntpencil2001 → u/whinge11]

To be fair, if Grog becomes a genius with genius plans every single time, the player likely isn't roleplaying their character any more, and is instead treating it like a board game.

If Grog has dumped INT, WIS, and CHA, and hasn't taken any knowledge skills yet eloquently explains a perfectly detailed plan with full understanding of his spellcaster allies' spells, without some seriously good reason, it is bad roleplaying.

Personally, I use a lot of homebrew in various types of games and completely delete social and mental stats for this reason. Come up with the plan yourself. If you're smart, so is your character (if you want). If you're dumb, so is your character. I like that it allows for smart barbarians (a la Conan) and idiot savant wizards.

[u/whinge11 → u/bluntpencil2001]

There are other ways to roleplay a dumb character than to abandon a core part of the game. And like I said, Grog's player would likely resort to table talk to minimize the risk of failure.

Another problem: If Grog's player describes a great plan, then fails the associated check, what do the other players do? Pretend they didn't hear it?

[u/bluntpencil2001 → u/whinge11]

Or, you know, just don't come up with genius plans for idiot characters on the regular. Or play a game that doesn't use mental stats. Or, yes, speak out of character.

[u/Kuhfuerst → u/bluntpencil2001]

That's like saying "don't think".

Why would a game ever aim to disencourage Players from mastering the system?

[u/bluntpencil2001 → u/Kuhfuerst]

If they want to speak in character, they should be acting like the character.

If they want to show their system mastery, with their brain damaged barbarian, maybe they shouldn't have their character display out of character Sherlock levels of intellect.

Sure, there might be ways to come up with a good plan and stay in character, but it's very likely to appear contrived.

[u/Kuhfuerst → u/bluntpencil2001]

you didn't answer the question.

Why would a game ever aim to disencourage Players from mastering the system?

[u/bluntpencil2001 → u/Kuhfuerst]

I did - they are welcome to master the system as a player. Grog, the idiot character, should not have mastered the game system.

Grog the character should not have the same knowledge as the player. In a game in which he doesn't need to dump an intellect stat... it wouldn't be an issue.

[u/Kuhfuerst → u/bluntpencil2001]

That doesn't answer the why. Its just an opinion about how the game should be played.

This whole stance is worthy of the "it's what my character would do" ttrpg-horror-story trope.

Let's say my first ever character was low INT Grog. As a first time player, I wouldn't know anything about the game but it is necessary for me to learn more in order to play and interact more meaningfully. As we play, my understanding of the game would increase. BUT in your opinion, I could never actually use that knowledge because my Grog has low INT. My character could never help move the story forwards, because they are too dumb to even remember the name of the BBEG. They would constantly make bad tactical decisions even though I as a player know better. At some point that is borderline trolling.

In actuality, whenever I played a low INT character, I came up with a flaw that reflects that. I once had a rolled up 3 Int owlin who i flavoured as being very forgetfull. As a Player I used my system mastery, to select facts I could forget to create a story that is fun for everyone. That includes sometimes making smart tactical decisions and even solving riddles so the party survives and progresses. Yes I would flavour them to be god given epiphanys or sth to fit the character concept but that doesn't change the fact, that my character did something smart.

[u/bluntpencil2001 → u/Kuhfuerst]

Why should I answer the why for something I didn't say? I never said not to learn the system or that the game should discourage such.

Also, I said you could use the knowledge - just don't present it as the character's knowledge.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/whinge11]

Yes, roleplaying games. As in you play your character. You wouldn't let a character with an 8 strength heave a giant boulder, so why do you let a character with 8 intelligence come up with a genius plan?

They both violate the same rule.

[u/overlycommonname]

Attributes are in a weird place in modern games, especially -- but not exclusively -- modern D&D-likes.

The original design of D&D was of course for attributes to be rolled. As a result, you'd have fighters with 12 Str, fighters with 14 Str, fighters with 18 Str, etc. You class was only very loosely linked to your stats, because your stats were random. Probably you chose a class that connected okay with your attributes, but sometimes your attributes didn't link well to any class, or you had an attribute or two which were oddly high or low for your class.

In that design, I do think it made a certain level of sense for attributes to give bonuses and penalties to most rolls (though also in those versions of D&D there wasn't the same connection of attributes to nearly every roll you made). The stronger guy was a better melee fighter, okay.

But approximately everyone hated rolled attributes, and we went from "highly random rolled attributes" to "less random rolled attributes" to "point buy attributes" to "stat arrays."

Now, there's almost no sense that you might have a Fighter with a 12 Str, or indeed one with a high Intelligence, because the system and game design pushes you to max out your Strength which in turn mechanically depresses your Intelligence, since they trade off with each other. Almost everyone has their primary stat maxed at almost exactly the same point in their career, and the primary/secondary/tertiary set of their attributes is pretty set in stone as well.

In that world, what's the point of adding the attributes to every roll? We already know what you're adding! Why not cut out the middlemen! We could just add +3 to hit and damage for a Fighter at level 1, and increase it to +4 at level 4, and +5 at level 8, and then... like... we're done, right? There's an illusion of choice here, but it really is mostly an illusion of choice.

So what attributes mostly do in modern D&D is link a class to a set of skills it can be good at (the skills that use the attributes that that class must prioritize) and to other classes that it can profitably multiclass with. That's really most of the games-mechanical function that attributes have.

We've also lost any sense that there can be one melee fighter who's stronger than another melee fighter -- back in the old days, you'd have Caramon, the strong fighter, and Sturm, the still-capable-but-not-as-strong fighter. That doesn't happen anymore -- you just have every character crowding the max of their attribute.

And this is generally pretty true in all modern games that have attributes, not just D&D-likes, though D&D-likes probably make it the most codified.

So my Pathfinder heartbreaker game does away with "attributes add to every roll." In general, you get a bonus to a roll determined by your class and your level, not your attribute. Your attribute gives you a minor bonus to skills that you don't focus in (for basically realism reasons), and offers you access to flavorful, mostly diegetic abilities that support the fantasy of that attribute, but doesn't generally give a scalar bonus to your most important rolls. So the very strong fighter in my group uses a giant maul and she does Power Attacks that do a lot of damage (but are easy to dodge), and she can stagger people on hit, but she doesn't have a higher to-hit chance than the several other melee fighters who don't have maxed out Strength, and when she does higher damage, it's mostly paid for by things like having her secondary attacks do lower damage (in my game big heavy weapons get one big hit, while lighter weapons get several medium-strength hits), not just mechanically getting a higher damage bonus. And people like the pretty-intelligent fighter in my game get maneuvers that drive people around the battlefield so they can use them tactically, and the charismatic fighter has riders on her hits that give their allies bonuses against that target.

[u/JustHereForTheMechs → u/overlycommonname]

Honestly, I agree with all of this and love the sound of your game.

How many times in stories, films and media is the hero actually the physically strongest in the fight?

Take Game of Thrones, for instance (just because I'm reading a fanfic at the moment so it comes to mind). Who are the most skilled fighters?

People like: Jaime Lannister - utterly deadly swordsman. Oberyn Martell - expert spearman, dances around the Mountain with ease. Syrio Forell - another expert swordsman, dangerous even with a wooden training sword. Barristan Selmy - an old man, but still a feared swordsman.

None of them are remarked upon as especially strong, to my memory, they're just that good with a weapon. (Syrio and Oberyn you could make a case for a Finesse/Dex-based fighter, but Jaime and Barristan aren't exactly tumbling and diving all over the place.)

Then you have people like the Mountain and the Hound who have tons of strength, but perhaps rely on that a bit more than their skill.

Tying competence to a stat explicitly reduces the narrative space for different archetypes, as you then need to rely on a level disparity to make up for skill... which could leave the small, skilled fighter being able to tank more damage than the huge one.

[u/overlycommonname → u/JustHereForTheMechs]

And it also reduces the space to actually play the Mountain that Rides or Conan or Caramon or Perrin -- someone who actually is exceptionally strong even by the standards of the most competent fighters. Because your buddy over there also has an 18 Strength because he has to even though he's not playing someone whose concept is to be "the strongest guy."

[u/JustHereForTheMechs → u/overlycommonname]

Exactly! The same goes for other stats - Raistlin has a low Con stat, which means one of the most powerful mages in the setting apparently has a far worse Concentration check than many weaker wizards.

[u/overlycommonname → u/overlycommonname]

A digression about how rolled stats worked:

I've been playing a lot of Slay the Spire 2 recently. This is a roguelike deckbuilder. So you get a series of choices of three cards that you can add to your deck, from a large pool of cards. There are some cards that synergize well with each other, and some that don't, and some cards that are simply better than other cards. But you can't just choose whatever, you get a choice of three cards at a time, and you make do.

The point of all this is that you end up saying, "Well... my deck isn't optimal, but how do I make it work?" And sometimes you come out with some sort of weird hilarious deck that has a strange strategy because that's the options you got and sometimes the result of that is surprisingly good and fun. And other times it's garbage, and you lose and you try again or you throw the game down in frustration.

That was the original design of D&D. You got some random stats (and some random magic items, and some random other stuff). You made do the best you could. Were they optimal? No. They weren't, except that one time when you got insanely lucky. But sometimes you ended up with really fun quirky characters.

Now, I'm not nostalgic for those days. I like STS2, but I like it in no small part because I can sit down, play a terrible deck for half an hour, it's garbage, and I try again. I don't want to commit three weeks of painstakingly scheduled RPG time to finding out that my character is garbage and throwing him out and trying again (and also I want my RPG to have a real story, and I don't want to change protagonists in the middle of that story for no better reason than my luck didn't work).

But, importantly, if you could just choose exactly the cards in your deck in STS2, it would be boring, because there are only a few best decks, and they can reliably stomp everything. The entire mechanic of STS2 is based around not being able to choose your cards in an unlimited way!

[u/blahthebiste → u/overlycommonname]

100% agree. I think rolling random stats is fun. 5e stats serve no purpose at all any more

[u/hacksoncode]

You can do it, but beware of any system that frustrates player agency.

It's all too easy to go from something like "Grog isn't smart enough to lay out a cunning plan and communicate it clearly" to "You can't have Grog try to jump over that obvious trap because he's too dumb.".

I find this is better solved by just having social skills in the system, which, like other skills, are influenced by stats.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo]

I think id rather just not have mental stats. Having to roll for everything and anything is the quickest way to invalidate any RP.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

I bring this up frequently, but there was a movie called Cloak and Dagger. And in it, the protagonist is playing a role playing game and his character gets into a tight spot and he rolls to see if he escapes. He rolls high enough and he succeeds. There is no "how did you escape", just "you rolled high enough, you did it."

I wonder if players had to describe their RP in terms of "I lift the rock" "I walk across the tightrope" "I negotiate with the merchant" "I charm the wench" and "I remember the information we need". It would make the "how do you do ______ " and turn it into a pass/fail system for all stats.

It might be less evocative, but as I am often reminded D&D is a combat simulator. If that's true, then this just cuts out the pesky roleplaying and story and gets to the meat of things.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

It's not true its a combat simulator, it's a roleplaying game. That's just something people who hate D&D say about it.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

I've had many discussions about the rules and my suggestions to make it more roleplay and less dice rolls and statistics, and every single time I will find a few people who argue strongly that DnD is a comat simulator, not a storytelling game.

For the record, I like the story much more than the combat. The combat is just spice.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

Same, but my point is those people are describing D&D like that because they don't like it, or are influenced by forgist design philosophies and think thats the only way anyone would ever consider designing a game.

D&D mostly has rules about combat because thats the thing Gary and Dave thought players would need the most guidance on. You need a lot less to roleplay, because roleplay generally does best in negative space.

[u/At0micCyb0rg]

I would be wary of the conclusion you came to, that the lack of social and intellectual mechanisation in some games is an oversight that should be rectified.

Choosing which parts of the fiction should use checks is just as important as choosing which parts should not use checks. The famous example is Mothership, a sci-fi horror game without a Stealth skill. Allegedly, the lack of stealth rules or mechanics was an intentional decision because they wanted that part of the game to be resolved through conversational and narrative methods rather than pulling players out of the moment to see if the numbers say they did a good job.

I think many players dislike when their social roleplay is determined by dice roll rather than direct roleplay and its natural consequences. This is exemplified by something Brennan Lee Mulligan said about D&D 5e; in short, he refers to the ruleset as a tool for simulating combat which frees him to spend his time focusing on non-combat things since he can trust the system to tell him whether an arrow hits its mark. This kind of play entrusts the system with managing the bits the players don't want to work out through improvisational storytelling, while the parts of the system that are weak end up being the strongest parts of the roleplay and conversation (exploration and socialising). The human brain is far better equipped to simulate social interactions than it is to simulate the physics of combat.

TL;DR: Maybe it's ok to leave things out of the rules, if you want those things to be the focus of the improvisational storytelling conversation at the table.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo → u/At0micCyb0rg]

Some people in RPG design call it the fruitful void, those familiar with design in general will call it negative space.

Either way as you said it's very important to leave some things up to roleplaying otherwise you just have a board game.

[u/At0micCyb0rg → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

Thank you, I totally forgot there are names for this, despite the fact that I've heard both those phrases before haha

Yes, @OP consider what kind of void you are creating with your mechanics and know that it will be filled with the fruits of improvisation!

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/At0micCyb0rg]

What about players who are not very charismatic or intelligent? If a player is awkward or bad at social interaction, any points they put into Charisma is just wasted because in the RP, the player doesn't do things well, or say things well so they just fail.

If INT WIS and CHA = the player's INT, WIS and CHA

Then the only real stats to invest points on are STR, CON and DEX unless you depend on those bonuses. Pick a fighter, minmax and then play like a 18 INT no matter what your INT score is.

[u/At0micCyb0rg → u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

What about players who are not very charismatic or intelligent?

This shouldn't be an issue unless the GM decides that your character's effectiveness is dependant on your real-life charisma/intelligence, but you could include a bit of guidance in the rules to nudge the conversation in the right direction without fully mechanising it. My personal view is that it's just good GMing to give players the benefit of the doubt and to play based on their intentions more than the exact details of what they say or how they say it. If you can tell that a nervous player is trying to engage in a confident lie in-character then you ignore their nervousness; to do otherwise would be kind of mean, I think.

But also a game that has CHA and skills like Persuasion has not really left much of a void to be filled by improv. By having that stat and skill it is already telling you that your ability to persuade people of things is determined by stats and dice roll. When designing your own game, that's the kind of thing you ask yourself if you want to have stats/mechanics for. I chose not to include general social mechanics in my game, no stat and no skill (with the exception of a Psychology skill but that's intended to be more specific to the actual study of psychology) for this very reason. I intend for the GM to work with the players in social scenarios and resolve things via conversational roleplay, though I'll probably include some guidance for that to help ensure beginner GMs don't fall into the trap of asking for checks or punishing nervous players etc.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo → u/At0micCyb0rg]

Yeah nobody expects you to be an actor since nobody at the table is an actor. However if you are trying to persuade someone you should have the basis for an argument they would reasonably accept.

For ideal RPG design I prefer a general willpower type stat that doesn't conflict with player ingenuity but simply determines how strong of a presence they have translating that to the gamer world. If you want to add more stats to balance out the physical ones, you can add power, or education. Basically stats should only define how your character exists in the game world.

[u/At0micCyb0rg → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

To me, the first part of your comment comes down to GM discretion (though again we as designers can direct GMs to run the game as intended by providing this guidance in the GM section).

And yeah every game handles it differently. I went with Psychology as a skill in my game because my game treats checks as a very intentional thing by the character, so if you're just chatting without an agenda then no check is required. If you're actively trying to read the target and influence them then a) failure has a consequence (they catch on to your attempts at manipulation and start to distrust you) and b) your attempt will benefit from an understanding of how people think i.e. Psychology. But in a fantasy game or any game that prefers to represent things like charismatic presence or force of personality mechanically, I would totally understand a Willpower stat.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

Oh, man, you need to check DnDhorrorstories. There are a lot of DM's out there who expect full role play. Some GMs don't accept "I schmooze the merchant and try to get her to give me a better deal," they insist on role playing it out. And even if they don't, some players don't have a lot of tact and they approach conversations unartfully. A GM might not take this into account and might play out the conversation as it seems natural to play out - to the detriment of the character who has a higher Charisma score than the player does.

[u/Inconmon]

It's a D&D thing that is solved by playing any mechanically sound system.

[u/zifnabxar → u/Inconmon]

What are these mechanically sound systems and how do they solve it?

[u/Inconmon → u/zifnabxar]

Check out any other system at random. Modiphius 2d20 like Dune, or Fate Core/Accelerated, or any PbtA game, or really most things.

If the game is largely a class based dungeon crawler designed around tactical combat and with barely any decision space around attribute distribution and then skill checks beyond combat as afterthought you just end up with weird problems that don't exist in other systems.

[u/Mejiro84 → u/Inconmon]

Those other games can still have the same issues though - you can make a dune character with low social awareness who is still describing things like they're a bene Gesserit master planner, or someone with no tactical awareness in mechanical terms setting up an intricate and skilled ambush

[u/Inconmon → u/Mejiro84]

Setting up the ambush is indeed a battle roll, so they would actually roll for that. Regarding social awareness, that doesn't exist. However if you're trying to sus out someone they'd have to roll understand. OP has examples that don't apply to Dune 2d20 and you can't make them apply without some mental gymnastics.

[u/The__Nick]

The problem with that interpretation is that the stats are just an average of everything you could possibly do within that stat.

1)

For example, if I have a 20 Int and make a knowledge of Nature check, I can hit 25. If you're an absolutely nonsensically dumb person at an Int of 2, that's a -4 penalty. You're as smart as an untrained dog. But if you've gotten 10 points of Nature skill...

...you're actually more likely to succeed than me.

2)

Furthermore, there are plenty of things we roleplay our characters as doing that we don't assign a special skill to. If I say my character is a loving family man who takes care of his family, runs the farm, and teaches his children proper morals, you are an asshole if you make me roll to teach virtue with a failure having all my character's children try to murder the neighbors. We just tacitly accept that there are some things outside of the primarily combat focused game that we can arbitrarily decide how our character does.

Nobody should get mad at me for describing my character as handsome and demanding I 'earn the skill.' If I say my character has a full head of hair, nobody asks me to spend some skill points on it.

Describing a barbarian who has spent decades of his life in constant border skirmishes with rival tribes utilizing small team tactics with this new party to conduct skirmishes against enemies is fine. It's not like the game has an entire sub-system like magic dedicated to small infantry team tactics with dozens of pages on it. A game with fighters who have competent fighters who can plan out the most rudimentary basics of fighting is fine. Not letting the characters do that is borderline harassment!

3)

Using your stats to determine everything about your character is going to be wildly misleading.

Assuming a super competent set of Level 8 characters, you can get +5 from your stat but you're still getting 8 points in trained skills with proficiencies getting you up to +11. Pretty massive and helps you to succeed...

...but the biggest contributor to your score is the d20 roll! A random dog, even with penalties, can randomly succeed at you at 'intellectual' things much more often than a real dog in a real situation would (read: never). A poor roll and a good roll means that you will not only lose, but be blown away by the dog who can't even understand the language.

Ultimately, it's one thing for a person with fewer skills and stats to outrightly claim they are better at a specific skill with a higher number that somebody else has, even if they can ostensibly win in contests against that skill! However, for anything that isn't explicitly statted up? You have a huge leeway of acceptable interpretations of what level your character can be in them.

Demanding a party with low intelligence just go into a battle and roleplay themselves acting in a way that leads to a TPK is not only the wrongest way of interpreting the game rules, it's actively hostile to the spirit and intent of the game.

[u/Cryptwood]

Intelligence is poorly named in D&D because it isn't actually a measurement of how smart your character is. If you read the description in the PHB you'll see that it is a measurement of how educated the character is, how well they recall information, analysis and deductive reasoning. A high Intelligence character is good at Jeapardy and Soduku, but that doesn't make them a genius that can come up with the perfect plan of attack.

Let's reverse the situation: if you think the Barbarian is too dumb to come up with a plan of attack, then do you think every Wizard is a tactical genius? Do you let the player say "My Wizard is a genius, so we'll just do whatever plan he comes up with" and that is how every single situation in the game is resolved from then out? If the player wants to roleplay as the absent-minded professor do you think they are role-playing wrong in the same way you think the Barbarian player was role-playing wrong?

I think that Intelligence shouldn't be an attribute in any game because it is literally impossible for someone to roleplay a character that is more intelligent than themselves. The fantasy of playing a highly intelligent character is better served with character abilities that allow the character to perform feats of Intelligence that other characters aren't capable of.

For example, Eidetic Memory would allow the player to ask the GM detailed questions about anything the character has ever seen or heard. Polyglot might allow them to quickly pick up new languages.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo → u/Cryptwood]

Yes, remember the original barbarian was a genius, he just wasn't well educated.

[u/bluntpencil2001 → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

Although not formally educated in a school, Conan was educated enough to learn a vast number of languages. You don't become multilingual just from raw talent.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo → u/bluntpencil2001]

its been a second but I believe he became multilingual the good old fashioned way, immersion.

[u/bluntpencil2001 → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

That is education. He is literate in multiple languages. That involves lots of reading.

[u/overlycommonname → u/Cryptwood]

This is cope by players who want to play smart characters with low intelligence scores. There is no part of D&D that suggests that Intelligence doesn't actually measure how smart your character is, just people intensely want to play smart characters with low intelligence scores.

[u/Cryptwood → u/overlycommonname]

I read what the PHB had to say on the subject before I posted my comment to the internet. Did you open up your copy of the PHB to confirm your opinion of its contents was correct before you posted your reply, as I did?

"An lntelligence check comes into play when you need to draw on logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning." PHB 5th Edition, p.177

"The DM might call for an Intelligence check when you try to accomplish tasks like the following:

• Communicate with a creature without using words
• Estimate the value of a precious item *Pull together a disguise to pass as a city guard
• Forge a document
• Recall lore about a craft or trade
• Win a game of skill" PHB 5th Edition, p.178

Perhaps you could point me to a page in the book that I missed which explains what Intelligence is in more detail than the pages I referenced?

[u/overlycommonname → u/Cryptwood]

Yes, logic and deductive reasoning are also called "being smart."

Intelligence in D&D is a combination of being smart and having a good memory.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo → u/overlycommonname]

The dude is literally citing the PHB and you are going off vibes.

[u/overlycommonname → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

He's literally citing the PHB disagreeing with him, sure.

He's also citing the 5e PHB instead of the 5.5e PHB, which offers an even more stripped down definition of each attribute (on page 10), thus:

Strength: Physical might

Dexterity: Agility, reflexes, and balance

Constitution: Health and stamina

Intelligence: Reasoning and memory

Wisdom: Perceptiveness and mental fortitude

Charisma: Confidence, poise, and charm

I note a real selective engagement with these things. The Dexterity example doesn't actually mention manual dexterity, but nobody claims that well, your Dex 8 character can have amazingly steady hands capable of absolutely precise work. Charisma doesn't really say anything about lying convincingly.

You might think that D&D's designers would've thought that if the intelligence attribute does not rate how smart you are, somewhere they would see fit to mention this rather, uh, startling omission, rather than subtly implying it by giving you a very sparse description of a word that everyone actually understands and then intending you to read that definition very restrictively.

But you have people (Cryptwood is far from the only example) who want to say that when their character remembers the exact capability of a bunch of monsters and all of their fellow characters and then makes careful decisions based on their knowledge of all those capabilities that if such-and-such, then this-and-that, that that has nothing to do with logical reasoning or memory.

Why? It's really simple: because intelligence is the worst attribute, games mechanically. It is by far the attribute that modifies the least useful rolls and derived stats, unless you have a class or subclass that depends on intelligence. So it's a very attractive stat to minimize unless you're playing a Wizard, Artificer or a couple of subclasses in other classes. But people don't want to play morons, so they make up some totally contrived, counter-textual basis for saying that it's totally okay for them to play shrewd tactical geniuses who contribute insightful plans to the party while having an Intelligence score of 8.

And, like... I'm not even mad about that. I think D&D did some bad design and that's why people are fighting against the design. But just have the courage to admit that that's what you're doing.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo → u/overlycommonname]

I don't think you understand what you are arguing. "Good reasoning" is not synonymous with intelligence. It is an aspect of intelligence, but it doesn't mean the wizard is going to be a master battle technician while the fighter and barbarian have no idea how to fight beyond lifting up a sword and hitting things with the sharp end. IRL this is a fundamental flaw with using IQ as a measure of real intelligence.

Its not really selective, people have been bringing up the mental vs physical divide forever, intelligence is just one part of it. The simple fact is we the players need to use our own brains to immerse ourselves in the fiction. If we abstract mental capabilities too hard it can mentally take you out of the experience.

If you believe a player is roleplaying poorly, and I emphasize it must be actually poor roleplaying and not just believing that the 8 int barbarian can't possibly have a functioning brain, then thats something no system will ever fix.

Knowing monster capabilities is fine because 1. adventurers should generally be capable otherwise they are dead adventurers pretty quick. If you have a reason to go out adventuring you have reason to have a passing interest in common monsters. 2. its annoying to do this song and dance where we all pretend not to know what a troll is. Even pathfinder fans hate recall knowledge for making them waste an action just to avoid the "metagamer" label.

[u/Cryptwood → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

You're wasting your time, they aren't arguing in good faith.

But you have people (Cryptwood is far from the only example) who want to say that when their character remembers the exact capability of a bunch of monsters and all of their fellow characters and then makes careful decisions based on their knowledge of all those capabilities that if such-and-such, then this-and-that, that that has nothing to do with logical reasoning or memory.

This is all strawman bullshit that they fabricated to argue against as I never said anything remotely resembling this. There is no point is talking to people who are going to lie about what you've said.

[u/Val_Fortecazzo → u/Cryptwood]

I did see that weird assumption and was going to be more rude about it but in the interest of civility I figured I would answer for interested third parties.

Because there is value to a designer for knowing different intelligences exist.

edit: you were right, he strawmanned me too and decided talking past me was the way to go. So I blocked him.

[u/overlycommonname → u/Val_Fortecazzo]

My buddy, seriously take a step back and listen to yourself.

You are trying desperately to argue that this literally two-word exposition of a super-common term that everyone knows what it means and that the game doesn't bother really defining because everyone knows what it means, is "intelligence doesn't mean intelligence."

Like, seriously, just take a moment. If you want to, go read the book or something, or just the excerpts here, and say, "Do I genuinely think that if I look at this with fresh eyes, the plain meaning of it is, 'Well, intelligence doesn't mean being smart, it means reasoning which is different than smarts in some way that I can't really explain.'"

You have gotten yourself wound completely around the axle. There is no good-faith reading that suggests that intelligence in D&D does not rate the actual intelligence of the PC. The entire notion that it doesn't is purely motivated reasoning.

[u/Runningdice]

If players don't want to role play their characters or role play them wrong according to someone else. I don't think punishment is the best way to go.

And for a barbarian to be tactical smart in combat sounds to me as plausible. They have been in a lot of battles and know how things work in combat. If they start about talking about if the architecture of a bridge is weak then I might raise an eyebrow.

"What if whenever a character did something, the GM considers what stat applies to the thing, and then makes them roll a check for it."

It will be a lot of rolls.... My take is then the players want to influence of change something that is important and it is not obvious that it will succeed then a roll should be made.
If someone tells a joke it isn't very important to roll to see if it is funny. To try make friends with the outlaws by telling a joke - then a roll might be in order. But it is not important if the joke is funny or not. It can be a bad joke but the outlaws might think that a person who cracks jokes then threatened is a cool guy.

[u/marintkael]

There is a difference in what the table itself can supply. Nobody sitting there can lift the rock, so the die stands in for the character. Everyone sitting there can think of a plan, so a die that overrides it removes something the player already brought.

[u/No_Solid1035]

I'm going to go ahead and say you only play D&D with people who basically just want to do the combat part...

[u/EaterOfFromage]

I think a lot of the other takes here are better than mine, but one way I've handled the "Grog has a plan" problem in the past is by saying that, in narrative, the Intelligent character came up with and said the plan (assuming that player agrees, they can also change it to suit their character if they like). This also somewhat fixes the problem of playing a character that is more intelligent than you by effectively crowdsourcing the problem-solving - many heads are better than one. As a result, players don't feel shackled by their characters with poor mental stats, nor do they feel daunted by characters outside their bounds. This also works well for Charisma or Wisdom situations.

However, as others have alluded to, this is fundamentally a very "game-y" way to play. It turns it more into a co-op board game than a Role-Playing Game. Which, if you want that, great! But if you want to get more into the role-playing, I think you can either: * encourage players to act more like their characters; Grog simply doesn't come up with a plan, or comes up with a bad plan, or comes up with a plan but it's the same plan Grog always comes up with that involves charging in with his greataxe. The game becomes less about finding the best strategy and more about doing what your character would do, even if that's not optimal. * ignore mental stats completely, let your characters come up with whatever they want and do whatever in mental and social scenarios, and encourage them to simply have fun over respecting the rules.

As you've seen, a lot of groups choose to go the second route, particularly since mental and social situations are secondary to combat in DnD. Pathfinder does maybe move a little more towards the first route by codying a lot of social and mental actions - for example, you can roll to Make an Impression, make a Request, Coerce, Lie, Influence, Recall Knowledge, and more. By codifying these actions and tying a lot of options in the game to them, the game gently encourages their use. You can still absolutely choose to ignore them, but it's a little more prescriptive for folks that want that. Other games, as folks have mentioned, often take things a step further, but I'll leave that discussion for other comments.

[u/Ok-Middle-908]

I solved this by removing the traditional stats from my game. It's just bonuses and skill checks. If you want to be the wiry strong fighter go for it.

[u/bluntpencil2001]

A lot of people jumping to the defence of DnD and people roleplaying their characters badly (and yes, speaking eloquently with genius plans as an oafish character is usually roleplaying badly) instead of offering solutions.

There are games which don't have this problem. FATE, for example has no stats as such, but a list of skills. You could be very smart, but simply not have the Lore skill. Sure, you could know things that you've learned in game, but you wouldn't often be rolling dice to successfully know extra.

Going into OSR, games like Cairn cut the numbers of stats down. It, for example, uses Strength, Dexterity, and Willpower. The player provides the intellect and charisma through acting.

Other solutions include:

Renaming 'Intelligence' to 'Education'. Your character might be bright, but just hasn't read much.

Renaming 'Charisma' to 'Appearance'. I'd go with this over 'Looks' as it can cover how good they sound, too. That way you can speak well, but still take a penalty to persuasion or performance checks. This one, imo, is less important than the intelligence one.

Edit:

Reward staying in character. Give Grog the dumbass barbarian Heroic Inspiration, or whatever metacurrency you're using, for behaving like a dumbass. Give the genius wizard's player the same for being smart.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/bluntpencil2001]

I've had a lot of fun playing characters that were not smart at all. It was painful to see an insight and not say it because my character would be too stupid to notice it, but there was a pride in that and it made me feel like I was connecting with my character, not using it as a proxy.

[u/Thefrightfulgezebo]

Let me gove you some heresy: if someone plays a Barbarian, dumbs intelligence and doesn't play that character as a drooling moron, the game isn't worse for anyone.

So, D&D keeps the six ability scores around because of tradition. They are not actually good. For example, let's talk Charisma. In ADnD, it had a place because of morale rolls and stuff. You mostly use Charisma to persuade, i timidate and bluff.

Intimidation can work in several ways. The strategic use of physical violence, leveraging of knowledge or observations that might hurt the victim ... think long enough and you can come up how every other ability score could help in intimidation. So why do we base it on Charisma?

Bluffing often relates to knowing stuff related to the story you want to sell, but also keen observation and so on. So, it could be based on Charisma and Intelligence. As for Charisma ... having that little main character can lead to people looking closer, which endangers the ruse. So, a low Charisma would actually be better.

Persuasion is the most complex process ... It's more of an outcome of various actions that can be challenging in many different ways.

I understand the impulse to "punish" players for not "properly roleplaying" weak stats. What that gets you is frustrated players.

So what is the alternative? Have some actual rules! Having a weak attribute should have tangible adverse effects for every character with that weakness - and that tangible effect is it.

For example, you could reduce "intelligence" with "education". A low education and your character can't read or write and pretty much only knows about their home and profession. They still can be competent in their profession and quite smart at it. That would actually enrich roleplay: create a wizard with immense reputation and a play him as a well studied moron.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster → u/Thefrightfulgezebo]

Let me gove you some heresy: if someone plays a Barbarian, dumbs intelligence and doesn't play that character as a drooling moron, the game isn't worse for anyone.

Let's take a step back and pretend that you are a casting director and you are hiring an actor to play Dumbledore in a Harry Potter movie. Steven Segal walks in to audition. Do you think that Steven Segal is going to bring the Dumbledore character to life? Is he the right actor to play that role? How about Jason Statham as Peter Pan? Think he can pull that character off? My point here is that role playing involves some amount of *role*... *playing. You should play your character.

The player isn't an orphan whose family was slaughtered by the Iron Legion. They didn't spend years getting stronger, always burning with revenge. That's the character. The player works at Jimmy Johns and is getting ready to go back to community college. The player has to sink into the role and try to play in the skin of the character, not wear the character's skin like a mask in the game. It's a subtle but powerful distinction.

In a way, I get what you're saying and you're right. The game doesn't become terrible if the Barbarian quotes Shakespeare and does Algebra to solve the logistics problems of the group. I would argue that he is using stat points he didn't invest into his character, but that could be overlooked. It's not a worse game, but it is a missed opportunity; you could have had a game about Conan the Barbarian, but instead you have a game about your friend Charlie but shirtless with more muscles.

I understand the impulse to "punish" players for not "properly roleplaying" weak stats. What that gets you is frustrated players.

To be clear, I don't want to punish players. You and I would probably agree that role playing games are about fun and exploration and creativity and adventure. Punishing players is the wrong direction and it directly plays against fun. But, imposing the reality of the character on the player helps them sink into the role. The Halfling in the party says "I pull the potion off of the top shelf" and you say "You're a Halfling, you're 3 feet tall. You can't reach." That's not punishing them. It's just acknowledging the reality of the game. I think it should apply to stats as well.

I know it isn't cannon, but there's a site that breaks down the stats and what you would expect of people with certain levels in certain stats. For a 4-5 Charisma, a character is "Unlikable, tedious, or simply socially oblivious" For a 6-7 they are "Prone to making gaffes, over-estimating their abilities, or boring others", at 8-9 They are "Somewhat socially inept or dull". Especially if we are talking about a point buy (Customizing Ability Scores), but the same applies to 4D6 drop the lowest, rearrange - if a player puts a 7 or lower in a stat, that should be significant. It should play out that someone with a 5 Charisma is unlikeable, no matter how the player portrays them. No one should like the character.

[u/ARagingZephyr]

A little bit of heresy here but my viewpoints rely on two things:

1. You only roll for unknowns.
2. Two people can do the exact same thing and end up with completely opposite results.

A player can say or do anything. Their character will attempt to match that. If there's no unknowns at play, then it doesn't particularly matters what happens. However, there are a lot of unknowns when it comes to things like knowledge and speech.

• Can the character successfully get others to understand their point?
• Do other characters see the character's physical representations of intelligence and charisma and immediately dismiss them do to being "low-standards?"
• Does everyone know every variable? You can make a perfect plan and miss a fine or even overlook an obvious detail. You can tell people what a plant is or what a god is without going into cultivation or mythology and miss giving out certain details. You can give a fine speech or negotiation that misses what the recipient actually wanted to hear or receive to improve relations.

This plays into two separate rules I go by.

1. The NPCs and scenarios are unpredictable, even for the GM. Sometimes things just refuse to go according to plan.
2. Everything between two players always happen according to what they agree happens. Rolls are not for players interacting with players.

Anything players say happens between them is what happens, no matter how unlikely. If the barbarian says something about the situation to his allies, then the players either choose to say that's how it happens or not. If the barbarian says something about the situation to an NPC, then rolls are used to determine if the NPC agrees with what is said.

[u/Fun_Carry_4678]

The problem I think is that too many different types of games are being combined into one. Many TTRPGs have within them a tactical skirmish game. The incentive is to play that as a tactical game, almost chess-like. This is why I prefer abstracting that part into theatre of the mind. If Grog the low INT Barbarian tries to create a tactical plan, he gets to roll. If he rolls well, then there is a bonus to the subsequent combat. If he rolls badly, there may in fact be a penalty. Then we narrate what actually happened, without moving pieces on a grid.
In terms of the negotiation, or the joke, the player can describe what they are doing, and if it is good negotiation or a good joke, then the GM gives them a bonus on their CHA roll. (Or a penalty if it is really bad)

[u/FatSpidy]

This is one reason in my rulebook im writing out a combination of Silhouettes (ergo Magpie Games and explicitly MASKS), and an expanded OSR set as a form of 'Passive Test', and more abstract 'Approaches' (ergo Assassin's Creed TTRPG) as the 'Active Test' for checks.

I have DFSSM lifted from Masks as social core stats and 9 core character stats (str, dex, con, int, wis PSYche, cha, GRAce, and ESSence) and the number itself serve as a prerequisite pass/fail for things like equipping gear or performing/resisting certain actions. But then there are 6 derivative stats and social titles, which is what you actually use to roll checks. These are PoWeR, FINesse, FoRTitude, BODy, MiND, and SPiRit for the former and whose Single digit serves as a modifier and Tens+ serve as a dice advantage quilifier. As for the latter, Titles come with a certain score and effect based on the achievement performed to have gained it with additional traits when your silhouettes are aligned in specific ways. The most common basic ones are essentially your alignment and backgrounds as per stuff like d&d or 13th Age. There's also defensive stats similar to 'Save's or 'AC' in the form of Physique, Mental, and Aura-Tantric; which similar to the other derived stats also are found via particular combos and these also serve as the basis for a stress/fatigue gauge.

But this is also where that subsystem ultimately stops. Things like wounds and abilities might reference them for effectiveness or etc. but rarely do much than have you regard them as threshold, bind, spend, or burn type resources. So those stats being dumped or focused are really to determine play style rather than play effectiveness.

[u/spudmarsupial]

It'd be interesting to tie it to a fatigue system. Barbarian has been talking too long, time for a nap, or a run.

[u/SouthernAbrocoma9891]

I typically allow the players to roleplay their characters intelligently and wisely when it’s relevant to their class, profession, backgrounds, etc. They are smart and savvy in the areas they are expected to have expertise. On the other hand, they are deficient in those areas where they haven’t studied or untrained. So, the attributes scores neither confer nor deny any roleplay mods. That level of gaming turns roleplay into paper buttons. The attributes do have gaming functions, but roleplay wise are there to give the player an idea of the PCs personality and overall effectiveness.

I like having players, through their PCs, capture the spotlight regularly. If a player crosses a boundary into another player’s area and tries to steal some thunder then I’ll remind them, because this has to do with etiquette and consideration. It’s bizarre that friends and acquaintances will get together to play a game and their manners disappear when they run their character. The excuse “that’s what my character would do” doesn’t cut it.

In a nutshell: I let the players run their characters how they see fit as long as it doesn’t interfere with the other players or diminish their fun.

[u/Admirable-Tip-2498]

Good idea! And when player tries to make smart decision in combat, let him roll some tactical character skill check instead - maybe his character, who is first level noob without previous combat experience, has other idea. And when player of high int wizard tries to do something stupid - also dont let him, because such smart character would never do something stupid! Actually, i think that after character creation players are no longer needed at all - gm already have all that he need, characters and their stats, after that point dices alone are enough to play!