Charisma is different. It's different than the other five stats, hanging out there at the end like Inky from Pac-Man. I'm not going to go into the evidence for this because I'm not pedantic and you can find your own examples, but suffice it to say it goes back to OD&D; the mechanics of Charisma were always just different from Strength and Intelligence and their brethren in the canonical six.
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| Useful but also incomplete. (Source) |
For this reason, it's almost a mistake to group it with the other five sisters. It's almost a completely different animal, like it should be in its own section - like THAC0 and Saving Throws are put in their own sections. Maybe it should be grouped with Alignment?
Anyway, Charisma is different both mechanically and practically from the other stats.
Practically, a group of players is not actually compelled to role-play. We do it because it's fun. But there are probably times for the sake of expediency that your DM just makes a roll to see what happens rather than having a conversation. Certainly it would be crazy to play out every detail of a long dinner party or series of high-level negotiations. Some amount of time is saved with the die roll.
Mechanically, this is the difference between the other stats and Charisma. The dice do come into play, but we use them differently. Usually the result of the stat checks on other stats is binary - either you can bend the bars, or you can't; you remember this particular demon's weakness, or you don't. But with Charisma, it's much better to use the dice as an oracle. The 2d6 Reaction table is the single most useful tool in the Referee's arsenal. And in its main use here, it gives a relative rather than a binary result, which is a much more useful tool when the goal is to have fun.
Regarding older editions of D&D...
ReplyDeleteWithout reading into the source of the picture, I can only assume that "aggressive" means that players use the ability as a roll, while "passive" means that it is a static modifier.
I realize that this gets 'pedantic' a bit more than you wanted to, and you state as much in your post, and for that I apologize, but I have to refute the supposition that Dexterity is passive and Intelligence is aggressive.
Dexterity is used aggressively used by players for some attacks (ranged) but intelligence is mostly used as a static statement informing the number of languages and spells a character may know.
Constitution is a bit of both, but a bit more passive I suspect as it is probably used mostly as a modifier to rolling up hit points than anything else, while Strength has its modifiers to bending bar,s lifting gates, encumbrance, but is ultimately used for attacks. Most definitely aggressive there.
Wisdom is the most passive, providing at least a prime requisite for clerics in most older versions of D&D.
Charisma, like Constitution, is a prime requisite for none of the four classes, and could be considered passive for these purposes, but - as you say for role-play purposes - I think this could be a player/DM choice depending on time available, or (lack of) acting ability on the players' part.
Lacking Johnny Depp's Charisma, I elect to have my PC roll for it instead.
Overall, I agree with you, though. :)
That’s a very wise analysis.
ReplyDeleteI think the passive stats up top mean that they are used to defend or mitigate attacks against the PC. They may also be used in attacks.