Where/when did the “Low Stats Make for Better RP and Creativity” originate?

[Willie the Duck]

Time and again various divides come up in the course of RPG history. We have time stamps on various fallacies, release dates laying down the chronological boundaries between editions, but I’ve never seen the opinion presented in the title tied to one specific time period or system. As of late I haven’t seen it all too frequently, mostly in rolled abilities/attributes/whatever cases.

Anyone care to shed some insight on what produced the “low stats make for better creativity and/or RP” school of thought?

There's not going to be a smoking gun on this. Certainly threads of the concept seem to have been at work in the culture of the game before oD&D saw print. Some of the biggest 'DM screws the PCs' type effects like Mimics and Ear Seekers and Bowls of Watery Death and the like came right out of a proverbial arms race/competition between Gary and his son Ernie and friend/coworker Rob Kuntz (who consistently figured out his tricks, so he escalated the tricks). That, plus people claiming to have gotten to the high teens in level after the game being in print less than a year (and his own groups having barely cracked the teens after years) led to some unsavory exchanges about the power level that the game 'should' operate at (and later Kuntz opining at the forward to the Gods, Demigods and Heroes expansion, "This volume is something else, also: our last attempt to reach the "Monty Hall" DM's. Perhaps now some of the 'giveaway' campaigns will look as foolish as they truly are. This is our last attempt to delineate the absurdity of 40+ level characters. When Odin, the All-Father has only(?) 300 hit points, who can take a 44th level Lord seriously?," whereupon people used it as a high level monster manual). Ever since, the game culture has tried hard to define what is acceptable accomplishment, and what is 'cheap' in some way. I think AD&D muddied the water quit a bit by offering 1) more things that stats did for you (this coming from oD&D supplement I), and 2) alternate rolling methods, which allowed various ways of getting better stats.

Regardless, stats are (usually) just pluses on dice rolls. They won't gatekeep any given creative endeavor. If I were to look at actual character power and whether it influenced creativity, I'd look to actual on-off capability (like, 'can anyone in the party fly over this pit? No. Okay, get creative!') with far more credulity.

[Clistenes]

For something like 5e with its bounded accuracy I don’t see much merit to arguing contrary, but 3.5’s skill growth would certainly smooth the numbers over to the point that it’s harder to finger the character as socially inept. Perhaps that says something about the merits of each system and how they can be wielded?

I have answered to that earlier:

Yeah, a low charisma character can invest into buying a skill and become competent; that would represent a person with poor communications skills working and training to get better at it.

But many classes get pretty few skill points/skill proficiencies... what if they choose to put them into something they can actually become good at, rather than dumping them into Diplomacy/Persuasion only to become merely bad rather than disastrous at it?

As I said, a low ability stat can discourage you from investing in related skills...

In my first post in this thread I argued that starting the game being very bad at almost everything beyond combat can encourage characters to focus on just bashing heads as the solution to all challenges.

Yeah, with time you can eventually become decent at something despite having a low related stat, but many (most?) players will focus on becoming useful from the beginning, and will allocate their skill points accordingly.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

[Thread title] originated from people who are bad at role-playing, who think playing an 'underdog' somehow makes them better at RP.

Realistically, it's the opposite of good RP. You won't have someone who's bad at math and can't even do basic addition and subtraction in their head wanting to become an accountant. You won't have someone who's never driven a car in their life getting a job as a delivery driver (yet people who are completely computer illiterate get jobs using a computer all day). Someone with an inner ear problem that causes poor balance isn't going to get a job roofing houses. Someone who isn't physically strong and has poor cardiovascular endurance isn't going to find work digging ditches or sorting and stacking shipping pallets. Each of those is going to do a poor job, they're going to struggle, and they're not going to enjoy their chosen profession.

The same goes for a warrior with low physical stats, a mage who's not very smart, an unwise cleric, etc. None of those are going to be very good at what they do, they'll likely not even graduate from whatever training is involved in becoming a member of their chosen class.

[Zarrgon]

Is anyone going to come forward and say that they advocate the view?

As with most Old School things I will stand alone if I must and advocate this view.

Over the course of ~35 years in gaming, I've repeatedly run into gamers who thought it was "power gaming" to give their character basic competence, let alone strong capabilities, and who insisted that it was "better roleplaying" if their character constantly struggled with everything. They'd build a character with power X that used dice from attribute Y and skill Z... but give the character a below-average in Y and nothing in Z, because if they were even kinda competent with X, they'd be "power gaming" and "not roleplaying".

I have met many a player like that myself, but I don't go that far.

(Note: Personally I think you can role-play at nearly all power levels. Although, I do think it is interesting to give a character a weakness even if the overall competence is high. But I radically disagree with the idea that low-competence is required for role-playing.)

It's very true you can role play any character at any power level. It's also true that a player that is focused only on the numbers and stats and rules and mostly combat often has no wish or desire to role play: they just want to do the classic "wargame" style so they can use all the numbers.

And there is the funny bit where a great many players say that their character must have some powerful mechanical positive benefit or they "can't" role play it. Though, it's beyond funny, that at the same time they want to play a Clumsy Thief, but insist on a Dexterity of 20 because they refuse to give up even a single point of any positive mechanical benefit....but occasionally they might remember to have the character role play being clumsy.

For a LOT of role playing, it's really the characters faults and weaknesses that form the foundation of the role play. But when you play a perfect all powerful character you lack that foundation, and it shows.

Of course, also, if you play a game style that is a lot less combat and mechanical adventure, you will notice a low stat does not matter all that much.

And finally high stats are just the Easy Button for many RPGs. Your character encounters some type of mechanical game rule challenge. Well, no problem your high stat optimized character can only fail on a very low roll...so most often it is just an auto succeed vs the challenge.

On the other hand, the low stat unoptimized character can not just roll though mechanical game rule challenge, so they.....have to...role play and figure out a way to succeed.

[Squark]

What is the foundation for this? CHA 4 is only a -3 swing from the baseline. What dictates the emotional range of a teaspoon being applicable here?

In earlier editions at least, the basic 3-18 ranged was presumed to represent a bell curve of human capability. So someone with a charisma of 4 is presumed to be in the bottom 2% of said bell curve. Similar scores for intelligence would indicate a person with severe difficulties functioning. So it's not unreasonable to assume someone with a Charisma of 4 would have significant difficulties socializing with others and processing emotions.

For comparison, the only monsters I can find in 5e with a Charisma of 4 or less that are still intelligent are;

-Manes (Lowly demons that cannot even speak)
-Retreivers (Construct powered by an enslaved demon that has had it's personality stripped away)
-Rot Trolls (Trolls that are losing their flesh as fast as they can regenerate it due to a degenerative magical condition)
-Yuan-ti Broodguard (Brainwashed humanoid turned Yuan-ti slave)
-Dretch (Damned souls consumed by self-loathing) [CHA 3]
-Skulk (No sense of self at all) [CHA 1]

So it would appear the assumption still more or less holds true.

[LibraryOgre]

My bet? Low level AD&D mages.

AD&D mages had 1 spell at 1st level, which means that they either hoard their spell all day, or shoot it sometime in there. In the meantime, they can't really DO much. They have no weapons. They have no armor. They have to come up with some way to contribute when their one spell is shot. And the argument is always "This isn't a problem, you just have to get creative!"

[KineticDiplomat]

I also suspect it became more pronounced as RPGs started having more and more defined world-settings beyond "this is the bad guy you fight today." After all, when all that matters is "there's a vampire here; you should kill him, because he is a vampire, and he is in the dungeon which you are dungeoning", then system optimization is perfectly sensible. Well, minus complaints about monty haul.

But once you start establishing a setting, PCs have a supposed place in relation to that setting. And in many cases by extension where they are in that system. What exactly that place is may be up for debate, but there is a place. And the GM starts building a world and story based at least roughly on those rules, finding a way to break them goes a long way to breaking the setting and the game. The verisimilitude, if you will.

Using our good friend Shadowrun, lets say that the best there ever was in human history is supposedly 15 dice; that the biggest and most individually talented actors on the world stage after magic and cybernetics came around might have 24. And the book kind of hints that while players really should have 15 dice, they get it that you'll probably end up with 18-19. They scale the opposition and the world accordingly - rent-a-cops with 7-8 dice, elite :"you should run from them fast" response teams having 18 dice per trooper, translate to lawyers and fixers and docs and so forth and so forth. Then a player manages to manipulate the system to give himself 42 dice at chargen.

Its clear that now you have broken the writers attempts to create a stable, at least minimally rationally coherent, world. And likely the GM's story. And because the writers write for the assumption that people would generally like to do cool things in a cool world, not to see if they can maintain across vast lines of splats and books an impenetrable puzzle that you will never find a loophole or kink in, it can be broken by those who want to.

So...we were at the point where you could break the story and the world/setting/story if you felt like it. And people began to say - wait, if you deliberately go out of the way to break the role-playing, the setting, the world, all so you can have a higher stat, what does that say about what type of game you're going to play? Is it going to be a cool human one which is why we're playing (insert setting here), or is it going to be a pile of dice a computer could do better and faster where you get bigger numbers?

It's a spectrum of course, but my guess is that in this case "low stats" is less "be a beggar! ha! RP!" and more "could you please not deliberately break a system we all know anyone with the inclination could break, just to have bigger numbers?"

And of course, there is that previous point about the meta. If you introduce a new player to the game, and the conversation sounds like the comic book guy from the Simpsons, you're hardly showing the hobby at it's finest.

[Xervous]

On the theming of things like shadowrun I am not considering this through the lens of narcojet-tipped-bow adept troll or the furry (SURGE but that’s just another way of saying cat girl at the very least) pornomancer, rather the 4 AGI mundane sniper who is in most senses a double health stand in for one of the rigger’s inaccurate drones. It’s rare that I see the argument wielded in situ against a character of uniformly high stars, rather that it is dredged up for cases like Rath or our sniper. Denied competency, a player has no way to interact with the world reliably which makes appeals to DM fiat the sole avenue that might give their character some narrative authority to recoup what they might lack relative to other characters in the party.

I will contest the notion that lower stats foster better role playing in a healthy sense. It is in fact a matter of coercion if the low stats are forced upon them. The stats are an effect rather than a cause in the case of a player willfully engaging in a ‘challenge mode’, opting for a level of difficulty and/or narrative impotence above and beyond what the other players have as a default. Players may have impact in spite of these deficits, but by their very definition they will not have impact because of them. The ones that find success are just better at Mother May I?

[Lacco]

There is this theory about limitations being very good for creativity - that if you have a free reign, it actually provides some basis for analysis paralysis, however, as soon as you get your first limitation (e.g. your character has low strength), the creativity kicks in.

With this in mind: straight 18s down the line make for really interesting character concept: Mary Sue. The opposite (straight 3s) makes for an unplayable mess.

We could discuss how this works in different RPG systems (e.g. if it is possible to actually play a physically weak fighter or a mage that has memory problems and which systems support such play versus limit effectiveness of the characters until they are actually unplayable), we could discuss what "low stats" actually are for each of us...

...or we can do the comedy act of "Powergamer! vs. Stormwind Fallacy!".

I have seen games where players bowed out unless they got 2 straight 18s or had more than single stat below 14 (begs for a question "why bother rolling anymore?"). I have seen players that took a flawed character and made them fun to play with. I think Quertus' rule (hopefully I remember correctly who stated it) of "Balance to the table." applies well here.

I agree that most players wish to play at least above averagely capable characters - and I support that. I do not understand the notion that a character is "useless" unless they "pull their weight"... as in "you do not fulfill your DPS quota, you're out of the team"

My bet? Low level AD&D mages.

AD&D mages had 1 spell at 1st level, which means that they either hoard their spell all day, or shoot it sometime in there. In the meantime, they can't really DO much. They have no weapons. They have no armor. They have to come up with some way to contribute when their one spell is shot. And the argument is always "This isn't a problem, you just have to get creative!"

I remember those times The local go-to RPG had a spellcaster that had actually 1 spell per day unless you got 16+ on your INT. After that you had two IIRC - and yes, local mage threw a temper tantrum at the GM when he rolled 11.

Me? I was glad my thief had 11 DEX. After all, I was not going to do any thieving until level 3 or 4 (when stats became much better) and wanted to focus on lying and cheating my way around

[Willie the Duck]

My bet? Low level AD&D mages.

AD&D mages had 1 spell at 1st level, which means that they either hoard their spell all day, or shoot it sometime in there. In the meantime, they can't really DO much. They have no weapons. They have no armor. They have to come up with some way to contribute when their one spell is shot. And the argument is always "This isn't a problem, you just have to get creative!"

That, or even older the old saw of 'back in my day, we didn't need a thief class with their rolling of dice to find a trap, instead you described how you were looking for traps and it worked great.' Which, to be clear, is how it worked, and the game did in fact work before a thief class (or generalized resolution mechanics in general). Just one more hill in the battle of when and how the game was best.

There is this theory about limitations being very good for creativity - that if you have a free reign, it actually provides some basis for analysis paralysis, however, as soon as you get your first limitation (e.g. your character has low strength), the creativity kicks in.

It's certainly not a universal, but there is something to the concept. I'm thinking of (as a random example that popped into my head) ASCII art -- here you have 95 different potential brush strokes, as it were, on a very limited canvas size (whatever text interface you are using), and yet people have come up with some amazing stuff. Limitations can foster some very amazing creations. That's not to say that I think it applies well to RPG stats (which, again, are almost always just modifications to a roll).

[kyoryu]

There's also different types of creativity. "Make what you want" is the black canvas (or Lego Kit, really, in 3.x). OTOH, random (and bad) stats help support a different type of creativity - the "okay, you've got these elements. What are you going to make out of them?" Think of it as Iron Chef, rather than being in a fully stocked kitchen.

[JadedDM]

Maybe 2e / Dragonlance?

One of the most memorable characters was memorable because he had Con 4 and was obsessed with surviving in spite of his sickly body. Eventually IIRC he either killed or replaced a god.

Assuming you are referring to Raistlin Majere, that's actually 1E and his CON score was 10, suggesting that the whole 'sickly' thing was entirely roleplayed flavor, and not represented in the mechanics at all.

(Also, not really important, but Raistlin did wind up killing all of the gods and taking their place, but that was an alternate timeline that was averted due to time-traveling shenanigans on the part of his brother and a kender.)

[Xervous]

There's also different types of creativity. "Make what you want" is the black canvas (or Lego Kit, really, in 3.x). OTOH, random (and bad) stats help support a different type of creativity - the "okay, you've got these elements. What are you going to make out of them?" Think of it as Iron Chef, rather than being in a fully stocked kitchen.

Too often I’ve seen it demonstrated that low stats merely force players towards options that are stat agnostic because that’s the only place left to find baseline competency.

Good stats enable various MAD or mold breaking approaches because more tradeoffs can be made to pursue thematic choices while retaining at least baseline competency. These will bring to light rarely or never seen combinations.

Left with too few ingredients of poor quality all you’ll get is soup!

[Necrosnoop110]

And there is the funny bit where a great many players say that their character must have some powerful mechanical positive benefit or they "can't" role play it. Though, it's beyond funny, that at the same time they want to play a Clumsy Thief, but insist on a Dexterity of 20 because they refuse to give up even a single point of any positive mechanical benefit....but occasionally they might remember to have the character role play being clumsy.

So true. I've seen permutations of that since I started rpg-ing. I also see this with the "low is how you really roleplay" characters with poor INT/WIS scores. Those players have their characters do incredibly intelligent or wise moves, way to often and way beyond what the scores would reflect. Although, some of that could be attributed to meta-gaming.

For a LOT of role playing, it's really the characters faults and weaknesses that form the foundation of the role play. But when you play a perfect all powerful character you lack that foundation, and it shows.

I largely agree with you. I would just like to clarify that for my own gaming, I really like playing a traditional hero. I find it hard to have a mechanically incompetent character be a hero in game with a crunchy rule-set. A more open ended, story-teller type system I could see it working much better.

And I see a difference between a competent character with strengths and weakness around a heroic-level "set-point" than a flawless character with no weakness. A realistic heroic character is also different than a tragically forever-incompetent character.

[LibraryOgre]

Too often I’ve seen it demonstrated that low stats merely force players towards options that are stat agnostic because that’s the only place left to find baseline competency.

That's a very good way of putting it. "I am not good at anything, so I need to rely on things that don't rely on you being good at things."

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, working within limitations is often better when you have something your wildly good at to compensate. an incompetent guy who is good at nothing is not that fun, but someone who is extremely competent at something narrow that can do a lot of tricks with it to do a lot with what they got can more than make up for their weaknesses by doing what they can do well and using it in unexpected ways that more well-rounded characters can't.

[KineticDiplomat]

Although it always seems a cop out, this is probably a case where the extremes are both in the wrong.

You don’t need a crippled pre-teen to role play. And it probably hurts the group.

Carrying around a setting breaking character actively hurts role play.

If course, then we get into “well, what’s in the middle? How do you define competence versus power gaming?” Cue circular firing squad of semantics.

I would say that these days almost all RPG settings come with a good bit of fluff and a variety of statted NPCs. Many come with little guides to “what does this number represent in terms of proficiency/ability”. Some even come with specific levels and challenge ratings. How does a character stack up? There is a good bit of wiggle room of course, but it helps keep check on the extremes.

If you’re soloing a dragon at level 5 in D&D, you are probably breaking the system as a role playing system. Good luck telling any stories that rely on “you’re roughly level 5 people facing the big crisis” when players are saying “no, actually, I am unto a god, this is not a crisis at all”. We know this because dragons have levels, stats, and even these days a CR.

Likewise, if the mooks in BoIT have roughly 8 dice, and the section in back says “the mooks are scenery that’s fun to chew on”, then it’s pretty clear that castigating someone powergaming for having 12 dice would be foolish. Within the context of the setting and the players place in it, this all makes sense.

Presumably, if you are playing, say Shadowrun which is about the surviving core of an already pretty elite crew - and you’re supposedly a former commando type who looks like, well, a commando type according to the book - maybe with a little on top, because, you know, PC - then that is perfectly reasonable. And indeed, playing a marginally competent 11 year old wouldn’t make sense (in most circumstances).

[Spriteless]

Okay, so, my sister, bless her for running, seems to think something like this, but not exactly. She and her ex admired the player who made a sorcerer with only ice spells, even though there were enemies immune to ice. Because OMG what devotion to an idea! At the same game, when I pointed out my 5 strength kobold could not actually carry that, I found a handy haversack in the very pile of loot I couldn't carry. (I had been hoping to play plucky comic relief...)

When I tried to introduce said future ex to a system without classes, he was unwilling to try something he wasn't already familiar with. Really he was very inflexable all around.

When I showed up to her game recently with a warlock who didn't know Eldritch Blast, she thought that was great too. (Look there are interesting cantrips on the warlock list, and EK doesn't outpace them by much at first level I planned to pick it up after this character had seen some fights, if my sister even put fights in the game.) In her case, it seems to be less about low stats, and more about eschewing preconceptions, and following your *heart's desire* to create a character with *themes*.

You can't fit an optomized and well rounded D&D caster into HotS, but you could build a HotS character using D&D, just as you can build Gandalf or Hawkeye. Can you play that build game, with a character that doesn't already exist? Clearly then you are creative, for creating it!

It is at least more coherent an attitude than the one in the OP. And when people take this attitude to an extreme that makes D&D worse, then I remember they are only doing it because D&D is popular. And try to talk to them about FATE.

[Zarrgon]

Yeah, working within limitations is often better when you have something your wildly good at to compensate. an incompetent guy who is good at nothing is not that fun, .

It depends on the player. Plenty of players love the low stat character.

Though note it's not "incompetent", it's just not Demi God.

If course, then we get into “well, what’s in the middle? How do you define competence versus power gaming?” Cue circular firing squad of semantics.

The middle seems easy enough to see. It's right between Optimized and Weak. In D&D this would be a character with an 8 to 12 in their primary used stat. Like an Int 11 wizard or a fighter with a Str of 12. Though depending on the edition you might be able to go up to say 14 and still be in the middle.

And really vs the typical power gaming in D&D, the middle really is just not being optimized.

[icefractal]

The middle seems easy enough to see. It's right between Optimized and Weak. In D&D this would be a character with an 8 to 12 in their primary used stat. Like an Int 11 wizard or a fighter with a Str of 12.

I wouldn't call that "between", I'd call that either weak or unusual.

If a 12 is their best stat, that's below average, in terms of 3-18 being typical for the world at large. Alternately, if they chose (and succeeded at, at least enough to reach 1st level) a profession / skill-set that doesn't suit their strengths, that's unusual.

Not that it's wrong to have an unusual character. But calling "doing something that you're good at, while being at least average" as power gaming, that's not a useful definition of power gaming.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The middle seems easy enough to see. It's right between Optimized and Weak. In D&D this would be a character with an 8 to 12 in their primary used stat.

I wouldn't call that "between", I'd call that either weak or unusual.

If a 12 is their best stat, that's below average, in terms of 3-18 being typical for the world at large.

icefractal is right. The average stat roll is 10 on 3d6 or 12 on 4d6b3 but the average stat array varies much more than that.

The average results using the 4d6-drop-lowest method are 15.7, 14.2, 13.0, 11.8, 10.4, and 8.5, hence why the 3e "elite array" is 15/14/13/12/10/8 (rounded properly it would be 16/14/13/12/10/9 and rounded down it would be 15/14/13/11/10/8, but neither has a nice pattern or comes out to a nice point buy value equivalent like the elite array does) and the 5e PC array option copies those values. Using straight 3d6, the results are 14.2, 12.5, 11.1, 9.9, 8.6, and 6.8, working out to an array of 14/13/11/10/9/7.

So in both cases the "average" character, who is not at all optimized with some crazy rolling scheme (which of course isn't actually "optimized" because the stat generation method used is something the DM determines rather than something the player chooses and is fixed for all PCs), in fact has a highest score in the 14 to 16 range, not 8 to 12.

Of all the dozens of possible DMG-suggested stat generation methods over the various editions, none of them output average arrays with a highest score less than 12. For that you'd have to roll something like 4d6-drop-two-lowest, for an average array of 11/11/10/9/8/7, and even random commoners are expected to have at least 10s across the board.

[MoiMagnus]

Constrains force you into unusual solutions.

Those constrains can be put by yourself (E.g: "This time, I want to play a wizard that doesn't use those spells I always take"), though a lot of peoples have difficulties following the constrains they put on themselves. I've encountered players who tried to play different characters at different campaigns, but in the end still ended up with the same personality and gameplay because it was so intuitive to them they just naturally played their characters always the same way.

Those constrains can be put by something else (E.g: "My wizard has a main start too low for the my usual spell selection to be the best pick, so I have to change"). But that can be very frustrating for peoples that actually don't want to be pushed into unusual solutions, and just want to play the character they decided they want to play.

There is part of truth in "constrains increase your creativity". Constrains focus your reflection on some specific points, and a good constrain even give you inspiration on how to solve your problems. But low stats don't do that alone, they're not enough of a constraint. You're just reducing the probability of success, but you're not forcing the players into a different thinking pattern. Chances that they will just behave them same, in worse.

The constraint "your team are too weak to win the battle and they know it" is a constraint that will force the PCs to go into vastly different gameplay (doing all their battle through NPCs, or diplomacy, or ...), and will lead to much more creative sessions. But to build a situation like this, you don't need to give the PCs low stats. In fact, giving your PCs stats that are too low might also discourage them from trying other solutions, since they don't feel they're competent at anything.

The absolute prerequisite for the player to be creative is for them to feel like they can actually do something. And having on your character sheet written "your character is bad at talking" (low Cha), "your character is bad at detecting liars" (low Sag), doesn't encourage you to try anything related to diplomacy. Sure, a player might consider that "I don't care about my stats, because I know that if I RP well enough the DM will give me a success" or "Low stats just reduce the probability of success, but I still can succeed". But a lot of players just don't try things they don't feel competent in. And for those players, low stats are just creativity-destroying.

I don't remember how it is written, but the on of the Paranoia rulebook essentially says "numbers on the PCs character sheet are in practice irrelevant, but they give to your players some inspiration on what their character is supposed to be good at, and give them the little push they need to try creative solutions"

[Xervous]

I wouldn't call that "between", I'd call that either weak or unusual.

If a 12 is their best stat, that's below average, in terms of 3-18 being typical for the world at large. Alternately, if they chose (and succeeded at, at least enough to reach 1st level) a profession / skill-set that doesn't suit their strengths, that's unusual.

Not that it's wrong to have an unusual character. But calling "doing something that you're good at, while being at least average" as power gaming, that's not a useful definition of power gaming.

Where the heroes are by definition above average as the default assumption I cannot see the justification for terming 11 int wizards as anything beyond incompetent heroes. They may be average for an NPC, but many of the systems we deal with are assuming all characters start on equal footing. Opt to play one, certainly you can. But it’s the player’s free choice that yields such a character, not the stats producing a compelling argument for playing an 11 INT wizard.

[Cluedrew]

Is anyone going to come forward and say that they advocate the view?

I doubt it.

I don’t think the view exists, or if it does is very popular. What is popular is the view that this view is popular, though.

I can argue for a something like that, in that characters with no low stats (have no weaknesses) tend not to be very interesting. Its not a hard rule of course but I notice that a lot of the time the people who are interested in characters only as a host for strong abilities don't think about the entire character. I actually don't see much min/max going on as they tend to aim for everything else being exactly mediocre. Out side of that I think considering "what is your character bad at" would round out a character which could lead to better role-playing, not creativity though (although you have been more creative with the character).

The other variant that I could argue for is that "low stats aren't strictly worse" because character power isn't the be all and end all.

[Nifft]

... he wouldn't begin his career as a hero with low physical stats, but with peak human ones (that is, at least 18 in every physical stat), and probably with at least WIS 18 and CHA 18 too, and with at least good INT too...

The thing is, Captain America did start his military career with low physical stats, and his military career was the foundation of his hero career.

We see him with those low stats in the movie. He takes action with them. His actions are sufficiently heroic to earn him access to the super-soldier serum.

Is anyone going to come forward and say that they advocate the view?

I doubt it.

I don’t think the view exists, or if it does is very popular. What is popular is the view that this view is popular, though.

Aside from ye olde games where life was cheap and PCs were disposable, the other place where I've seen this idea is players who want to play accidental or unwilling heroes, like Bilbo, Rincewind, or Arthur Dent.

This is usually confined to new players who don't know much about gaming yet, but who might have played computer RPGs and have certainly read books.

The character concepts aren't necessarily bad, nor are they created in bad faith, but that archetype is a poor fit for D&D which is more suited to a troupe of competent professional tomb-robbers.

AFAICT new players seem to outgrow the desire to play that archetype, so how often you see it might depend on how often you game with inexperienced players. Or it might be down to luck.

[Xervous]

The thing is, Captain America did start his military career with low physical stats, and his military career was the foundation of his hero career.

We see him with those low stats in the movie. He takes action with them. His actions are sufficiently heroic to earn him access to the super-soldier serum.



Aside from ye olde games where life was cheap and PCs were disposable, the other place where I've seen this idea is players who want to play accidental or unwilling heroes, like Bilbo, Rincewind, or Arthur Dent.

This is usually confined to new players who don't know much about gaming yet, but who might have played computer RPGs and have certainly read books.

The character concepts aren't necessarily bad, nor are they created in bad faith, but that archetype is a poor fit for D&D which is more suited to a troupe of competent professional tomb-robbers.

AFAICT new players seem to outgrow the desire to play that archetype, so how often you see it might depend on how often you game with inexperienced players. Or it might be down to luck.

In which case the players are choosing to play the underdog as an expression of their creativity. Picking low stats was the expression of their vision, not the motivation for it. Validity or applicability of the character aside, the stats are not a driving factor in these cases.

[Lacco]

It may also be a system-related issue.

If the game gives you opportunity to shine even in spite of your terrible rolls during chargen and provides opportunities for character growth (not limited, but including raw power), maybe you will enjoy being the underdog that turns the tables on the powerhouses in front of you.

If the game plays as "you need to be this tall to feel competent/have fun/defeat the mooks/eat your cake" or you need to wait for a roll of exactly 20 to actually hit the orc, I completely understand the sentiment of "sorry, bowing out because of poor stats".

[Nifft]

In which case the players are choosing to play the underdog as an expression of their creativity. Picking low stats was the expression of their vision, not the motivation for it. Validity or applicability of the character aside, the stats are not a driving factor in these cases.

We're talking about the "unwilling / accidental hero" archetype.

Is it really an expression of creativity to force the DM and other players do all the work of keeping your character involved in the story?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I can argue for a something like that, in that characters with no low stats (have no weaknesses) tend not to be very interesting. Its not a hard rule of course but I notice that a lot of the time the people who are interested in characters only as a host for strong abilities don't think about the entire character.

I've seen this argument a bunch of times, but it doesn't really hold in either direction. There's nothing intrinsically "interesting" about having one or more low stats, and there are many more weaknesses one can have besides low stats.

For the former, a wizard with Str 6 or a fighter with Wis 6 certainly has a weakness--and a pretty crippling one, at times; better hope the wizard never gets grappled and the fighter never gets mind-controlled--but it's an expected weakness of a member of that class (the "wimpy nerd" wizard and "clueless jock" fighter stereotypes) so it doesn't actually add any new dimensions to the character, and it's not a more "interesting" weakness than that possessed by a Str 10 wizard or Wis 10 fighter because "my worst stat is Str/Wis" has essentially the same roleplaying manifestation either way.

For the latter, what are Luke Skywalker's and Indiana Jones's dump stats? They're plenty athletic all around, so probably not a physical stat; Indy is a professor and both of them are clever quick thinkers, so not Int; both are likeable and personable (though Indy's exes might disagree), so not Cha; and while Luke is somewhat naive in ANH and Indy tends to be a sucker for a pretty face in all three movies, their strength of will indicates that that's not a sign of low Wis, so not Wis either. It's pretty fair to say that neither character has a noticeable dump stat, but that doesn't mean they have no weaknesses or that they're not interesting, just that neither aspect of their characters stems directly from their respective stat arrays; in D&D terms, it's their backstory and alignment issues that round them out in that way.

In fact, I'd argue that "characters are interesting if and only if they have one or more low stats" is a crutch used by new and/or weak roleplayers because they can't look beyond the character sheet for inspiration. A high-powered character with no stat below a 16 but with a fleshed-out personality is going to be more interesting then an average character with low stats but a one-dimensional personality every single time.

[prabe]

We're talking about the "unwilling / accidental hero" archetype.

Is it really an expression of creativity to force the DM and other players do all the work of keeping your character involved in the story?

I don't see anything about the archetype that necessitates the player being disengaged. Just because the character wants nothing more than for whatever is going on to stop, that doesn't mean the player wants that. I've played that type of character before: I was far from disengaged, and my character was far from uninvolved, and it was no additional work for the GM (or the other players).