The Roleplay is in the HOW of the stats... C'mon. Be Creative!
Low Charisma? Maybe you smell bad, Or Talk with in annoying pitch, OR are too gruff, OR Maybe have a habit of blurting out things that are better unsaid.
Low Dexterity? maybe you are clumsy, OR you had suffered an injury that makes you move stiffly, OR maybe there is even the effect of a curse which tends to make you dodge INTO attacks instead of away.
Part of the reason I have always loved role playing games is that they give us both the opportunity and motive to try to see things from someone else's point of view.
The method you describe I think could be summarized as a process of looking at the attributes of a character, hypothesizing up a story about how those numbers came to be, and playing as if that story is true.
The problem, as I see it, with that method is that it is not at all like the experience of being a person from the inside. It is in fact, exactly the same process we use to judge our neighbours from the outside. We look at someone, see their external, visible characteristics (and in this sense, I think intelligence and charisma and such are all visible, in how people behave, speak, and relate), and make up a story in our heads about that person. We then, in most cases without thinking about it, behave as if that story is true.
And hey, a lot of the time that's fine. You cannot overthink every tiny interaction.
But a role playing game can be a wonderful opportunity to practice our other, more sympathetic skills in a fun way.
So, the method I use for character creation, if I get to choose the game mechanics, is something like this:
- First, peruse the game rules and choose a character class, or idea, of what you want your character to be. Pretty much just what you would do before beginning point-assignment, in those cases where you have a pool of points to spend.
- However, we do this in a system which uses dice to generate random attributes, and proceed to roll the dice.
- The original concept, and the numbers the dice gave you, will almost certainly be in conflict in some small or large ways.
- Think about how that would feel, as the young version of that character. They always wanted to be a wizard, but rolled 6 on int. How do they respond to this?
Do they try to be a wizard anyway?
- Do they reluctantly give up and do something more mundane?
- Do they decide to quest for some kind of macguffin to help raise their intelligence? How would a person with 6 int approach such a task? How would they lean on their other attributes while doing so?
I think that you can see the process here, and how character creation would then proceed. If I failed to be clear, let me know.
And I think approaching things this way, leads to a much more enjoyable kind of roleplaying than other methods I have tried. I have also found it really gets me wondering about the lives of the people I talk to in real life. Because if you try this a few times and compare to the quicker method, you start to realize they are making use of whole different sections of your brain. I think the quicker method makes heavy use of our brains threat assessment mechanisms, while the more thoughtful approach (not that @Sigil_Thane said anything thoughtless, just that the second approach requires more thought) leans on theory of mind.
I love the idea of a ressurector type Zombie. Bringing back to life the zombies you just killed would be awesome. headless zombies should be exempt though.
THAT is a super cool idea, that I didn't catch during the stream. Was it just now from your head? If so you are brilliant, if not, someone else is brilliant. And hey, let's just have a brilliance party and assume both are true.
Thanks for mentioning though because the idea is new to me.
