RPGMemes

One of the things I liked about the Chronicles of Darkness system is it cleared this up nicely. Stats were in a 3x3 grid.

One axis was physical, mental, social

The other was Power, Finesse, Resistance.

Want to shove something? Physical + Power. That's strength.

Want to figure out a riddle? Mental + Finesse. That's ~~Dexterity~~ Wits. (Edit: wrote dexterity originally, meant Wits)

Command attention? Social + Power. That's the Presence stat.

Lie and misdirect? Social + Finesse. Stat was called Manipulation.

Now you can have a character that's commanding without also being a natural liar and flirt. DND doesn't help let you do that because the concepts are bundled together into a single stat.

(You could invest separately into like Expression for making speeches and Deception for lying, of course)

Humans are rated 1 to 5, where a 5 is the peak of human capability. Presence 5 is like AAA movie stars and great leaders.

Of course, if you add supernaturals to your game a starting chump vampire could have seven presence if they take Majesty as their power, and become a nearly irresistible magnet of attention.

My prime example would be Donald Trump. Hideously looking and true evil while dumping strength, dexterity, constitution (unfortunately not enough), intelligence and wisdom, but he undeniably has at least an 18 in charisma.

Charisma is essentially Social Skills.

Social Skills definitely help you get laid, but also convince a shopkeeper to give you a discount, persuade a guard to look the other way, etc.

What was the old saying?

Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom Is knowing not to bake it into a cake.

jpegging a pdf will do that for you

Eh, a ten will give you about a 50/50 roll if something is "easy," and only about a 25% chance if something is "medium" difficulty. Sounds about right for me.

Am I gonna shut my damn mouth when I should? 75% of the time, no.

10 is average for an adventuring hero. Not necessarily for most "civilians" if you want to call them that.

Edit: I stand corrected. Must have confused it with some other system or an older edition.

Paladin doesn't use CHA with their god, they use it to lure the common people TO their god. So they gets more powah.

Constitution is when you have to eat the fruit salad and there's tomatoes in it.

Charisma is being able to sell a tomato-based fruit salad. That's how we got salsa.

Charisma is framing salsa as a tomato-based fruit salad

But the little cherry tomatoes rock in fruit salad!

What about fruit salad served in a tomato?

Hey, I’m all for nostalgia, but reordering it to separate the physical stats from the mental ones was a very good idea. I’m pretty sure my first game back when I was… 10? (long time ago)… also used the Str Int Wis order. But you know… that order got changed REAL fast… 2e, iirc. And good riddance.

Wasn't it copper-silver-electrum-gold-platinum? That would be the order of value as I remember it but I haven't looked at the boxed stuff in years.

I think fallout's S.P.E.C.I.A.L works quite well.

Wisdom isn't a thing by itself, it's split between perception, charisma, and intelligence, for the most part.

I attribute it like the line, "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should." Just because someome is brainy and knows a lot of specialized facts doesn't mean they'll always make wise decisions.

c/AuDHD