Thinking outside the box when explaining stats

[Kaibis]

I have recently been really enjoying playing a 50yo paladin that was previously a knight's commander, but got really depressed and just gave it all up. Sold her armor and swords, forgot all her spells (or stopped preparing them), basically stopped caring. She spent years living a bit like the "old codger who was once an adventurer but now runs the corner shop". She would light lamps, and do the odd bit of healing. Just enough to pay the bills, but she is living really poorly.

She met a group, and came along with them, her leveling up is explained by her getting back into shape, buying herself proper armor again, slowly remembering her spells and practising how to fight. At lvl 3 she renewed her oath (which she had never broken).

I have thoroughly enjoy taking a different approach to the backstory. It works because lvl 1-3 barely takes 48hrs, so there is no trouble explaining it. I mean, I would expect it to take 6-12months for her to get back into form again (the time frame is debatable, but it is fantasy so :smalltongue:).

What are you out-of-the-box backstories and stat explanations.

[Kaibis]

I was also trying to deal with a character with int 9, in a group where I, the player, kept noticing things. I was struggling with the meta-gaming aspect and then I realised that I didn't have to play her as a dumb character... I got thinking about how to explain the low int.

Well, she is really smart but she constantly jumps to conclusions, she is tunnel-visioned at times and misses stuff all the time. She is just hopeless at reading people, she will often be so focused on something that she misses other stuff. So she is really smart, but constantly stuffs up and misses things (and this is reflected easily by the dice rolls).

Again, I like playing her as it gives me lee-way to notice things as a player, but have my character also really stuff up when it comes to the crunch (ie dice rolling time) . She misses things, mis-reads people, skim reads books and misses half of what is in it, jumps to conclusions about arcana, history, religion etc, remembers studying stuff but it is all such a messy jumble that she can't clearly answer the question.

[Cespenar]

I have recently been really enjoying playing a 50yo paladin that was previously a knight's commander, but got really depressed and just gave it all up. Sold her armor and swords, forgot all her spells (or stopped preparing them), basically stopped caring. She spent years living a bit like the "old codger who was once an adventurer but now runs the corner shop". She would light lamps, and do the odd bit of healing. Just enough to pay the bills, but she is living really poorly.

She met a group, and came along with them, her leveling up is explained by her getting back into shape, buying herself proper armor again, slowly remembering her spells and practising how to fight. At lvl 3 she renewed her oath (which she had never broken).

I have thoroughly enjoy taking a different approach to the backstory. It works because lvl 1-3 barely takes 48hrs, so there is no trouble explaining it. I mean, I would expect it to take 6-12months for her to get back into form again (the time frame is debatable, but it is fantasy so :smalltongue:).

What are you out-of-the-box backstories and stat explanations.

Actually I've used a similar approach a very short while ago. Old pirate cleric of Auril, once the captain of his own ship, raiding towns in the Ten Towns, now out of shape, fallen from grace and with a drinking problem. Leveling up is fluffed as getting back into shape, shaking off his drunken stupor, and regaining his faith in Auril.

Gets himself stranded in Barovia with a bunch of young adventurers along a mercenary job that was supposed to pay for his booze for the next three months. Ends up saving Barovia.

10/10, would fall from grace again. :smalltongue:

[Kaibis]

Actually I've used a similar approach a very short while ago. Old pirate cleric of Auril, once the captain of his own ship, raiding towns in the Ten Towns, now out of shape, fallen from grace and with a drinking problem. Leveling up is fluffed as getting back into shape, shaking off his drunken stupor, and regaining his faith in Auril.

Gets himself stranded in Barovia with a bunch of young adventurers along a mercenary job that was supposed to pay for his booze for the next three months. Ends up saving Barovia.

10/10, would fall from grace again. :smalltongue:

Ha, that sounds great. Someone tried to turn me off the backstory, but I found it more believable then having a 20yo go from hopeless to awesome in the course of a few months.

[Cespenar]

Ha, that sounds great. Someone tried to turn me off the backstory, but I found it more believable then having a 20yo go from hopeless to awesome in the course of a few months.

It's way more believable than that in my opinion as well.

One new hook I used to make leveling up more "sensible" for young characters in my game was this: they just graduated from a very theoretical-heavy academy (which makes sense in my setting but maybe not in other settings), so that any practical experience they get just "clicks" with what they already learned, resulting in a much faster rate of "leveling up".

[Kaibis]

It's way more believable than that in my opinion as well.

One new hook I used to make leveling up more "sensible" for young characters in my game was this: they just graduated from a very theoretical-heavy academy (which makes sense in my setting but maybe not in other settings), so that any practical experience they get just "clicks" with what they already learned, resulting in a much faster rate of "leveling up".

I would class having the entire party knowing each other (because they went to school together) as being a cool non-tavern way for the party to meet. All bookish and full of bravado.

[johnbragg]

I was also trying to deal with a character with int 9, in a group where I, the player, kept noticing things. I was struggling with the meta-gaming aspect and then I realised that I didn't have to play her as a dumb character... I got thinking about how to explain the low int.

Well, she is really smart but she constantly jumps to conclusions, she is tunnel-visioned at times and misses stuff all the time. She is just hopeless at reading people, she will often be so focused on something that she misses other stuff. So she is really smart, but constantly stuffs up and misses things (and this is reflected easily by the dice rolls).

Again, I like playing her as it gives me lee-way to notice things as a player, but have my character also really stuff up when it comes to the crunch (ie dice rolling time) . She misses things, mis-reads people, skim reads books and misses half of what is in it, jumps to conclusions about arcana, history, religion etc, remembers studying stuff but it is all such a messy jumble that she can't clearly answer the question.

This only applies in high-magic settings, but I fluff Wisdom as basically Force senses. The world is an interconnected set of fields of energy, many of which are effected by intelligent minds. Your Wisdom is a sixth sense that's tuned into that. It tells you that the particular arrangement of leaves and berries you're seeing is deathshade and not the almost identical looking tastyplant because they have different energy signatures/auras/emanations.

That's also why Craft is an Intelligence check--you know how to create the BEST sword, or lentil soup or whatever. Profession is a Wisdom check--it takes understanding of other people, and how many of them want or can afford that sword, or could tell the difference between your DC 20 Lentil Soup! and DC 10 lentil soup or care enough for it to matter.