At least I have my health. ; )
Dear JB:How do y'all play intelligent, wise, and/or charismatic characters when y'all aren't personally IRL are not those?Like, if you play a character who has a notably high score in one of those stats, such as a artificer/wizard for intelligence, monk/ranger/druid/cleric for wisdom, or paladin/bard/sorcerer/warlock, what do y'all do to play them if you wouldn't personally describe yourself as intelligent, wise, or charismatic?Or in summary, how do y'all RP as characters with mental traits that you personally IRL do not have?Curious
Dear Curious:
I have known very, very intelligent, very educated people who were VERY stupid and VERY ignorant about any number of things outside their field of expertise. I've known very sleazy, cowardly, rapacious and dishonorable people people who nevertheless had something that attracted and drew others to them (consider, perhaps, a certain someone living in a certain "white" house at the moment) or who proved effective leaders, highly capable of inspiring people despite being gruff, abrasive, and taciturn. Finally, I've known more that a few "spiritual" and "wise" people who still made a plethora of unwise decisions...mainly with regard to their health (smoking, overindulging in alcohol, being morbidly obese causing numerous ailments, etc.)...and there are plenty of examples of deeply devout, pray-every-day types who unwisely put their faith in charlatans and hucksters who bilk them out of their cash.
D&D is a game, and the game has systems in place that measures the manner a character is effective in a number of game-related ways. In AD&D, intelligence is largely a measure of how well a magic-user can learn learn spells, although it is also determines a character's capacity for learning new languages. That's all it does! Wisdom measures a character's mental fortitude to resisting mind control, and (for cleric types), allows them to call on their Higher Power more often when it comes to the performance of miracles (i.e. spells). Meanwhile, charisma measures the je ne sais quoi of a person when it comes to being likable (reaction) or commanding the loyalty of others...it doesn't mean the person is particularly attractive or articulate or silver-tongued or empathetic, just that people LIKE them and TRUST them...which could be for all sorts of reasons!
What players (and DMs) need to remember is that D&D IS A GAME and, for better or worse, these abilities, despite their evocative names, are just as abstract as "level" or "hit points" as a measure of character effectiveness. And when playing D&D in the correct fashion, that's the thing that matters. It doesn't matter whether the magic-user knows how to balance his checkbook, or knows the history of the realm, or the proper etiquette when partying with a kobold tribe; what does matter is how hard it is for the dude to learn to cast a fireball spell. Because we're going to need that fireball spell at some point (probably).
We want fighters with higher strength scores because they are better fighters; we want clerics with better wisdom scores because they're better spell-casters...get it?
So, Curious, I realize that you are a 5E player and so you have a different idea of how D&D is supposed to be played and so "RP" (what other role-players...like myself...would call "play acting") is an important thing to you and your friends. But this is just another example of how DIFFICULT that type of play style is. If you think a character with high intelligence should act like some sort of genius planner/schemer on par with a Batman or Lex Luthor, you're asking something very challenging of any improvisational actor (considering especially that literary characters like Sherlock Holmes are written over a long, thoughtful period of time by authors who craft their stories in a way to show and emphasize their "genius" powers of the mind). And, for the record, that's NOT the kind of challenge the game was originally supposed to foster.
Meanwhile, as a Dungeon Master, I'll tell you that there's little that's more annoying than someone taking the OPPOSITE tack: making utterly stupid decisions with their character or behaving in a disruptive fashion just because their character has a low score in intelligence or wisdom or charisma. This is utterly ridiculous! Read Harold Lamb's Khlit stories about the curmudgeonly old Cossack who, despite being uneducated, completely illiterate, and rather blasphemous in his faith, still exhibits more crafty intelligence and experiential wisdom than any of the foes he faces in his adventures. Just because your fighter has an INT of 5 doesn't mean YOU (as the player) need to choose stupid, stupid actions in the game or behave in a manner that will get you (and your party) killed...it just means you're never going to "dual class" as magic-user (or anything else with a score that low!).
So, forget the "play acting;" you should think of your character as your personal avatar: your vehicle for exploring the game world. Which it is. And just as different vehicles have different capabilities (different strengths and weaknesses) so, too, does your "imaginary person." In this vehicle, you may be capable of swinging a sword well, or learning the most complex of spells, or commanding the loyalty of a huge number of followers...regardless of what YOU (in real life) can do. And that should inform and influence how you play the game with that particular character.
I'm not seven feet tall: I'm not going to be playing in the NBA. I don't have graduate degrees from M.I.T.: I'm not going to be a brilliant mathematician. That's just how it is. I, as a not-perfect-at-everything human, am forced (in this life) to work with what I've got. So, too, a player must work with what the dice (and their few choices during chargen) dictate.
Now, I realize that some of the folks who play D&D differently from myself are going to say something along the lines of:
"But JB! Playing D&D with the same old sorry tropes of strong, dumb fighters and wise holy clerics and powerful (but otherwise incompetent) wizards is B-O-R-I-N-G! We want to change things up, make interesting stories with interesting characters. This creates DRAMA without which the game grows O so stale. Without the type of "RP" you describe as "play-acting," the game is just crunching the numbers of hit points and people dying in holes for imaginary gold pieces which are little more than counting 'points.' Your old style method of playing D&D fails to account for the fact that the community...and the game itself (which cannot exist without the community)...has EVOLVED. These questions of how to play characters are important, because role-playing (what WE call role-playing) IS the game, That is what we sign up to play; that is what we WANT to play. If that's not what the game's about, then it isn't the game for us...get it?"
Oh, I get it.
Unfortunately, for folks who insist on playing D&D is this new, "evolved" fashion, I have no help for you. I have no answers to your questions. I have no advice to offer you (other than "play differently"). The issues that arise from your particular style of play are not issues that have to be dealt with in my "boring" style of play...but happily, neither I nor my players find our "un-evolved" style particularly "boring."
Your preferences are your own, but don't base your paradigm on a false premise. You want to "RP?" Great. Best of luck to you. But the problems that arise from attempting to play a game with mercurial and/or limited rules aren't solvable by retaining a laissez-faire attitude towards the objectives of game play. Sorry.
Sincerely,
JB
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