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I've seen threads where DM's (mostly) are talking about how to enforce the proper roleplay of certain character stats. My gut reaction to this concept is, "Who the *blank* are you to say, with certainty, how Mental-Stat-X will behave?"

Intelligence comes up often with puzzles. Okay, for starters, if you came up with the puzzle and you don't think INT X should be able to solve it, then you've declared yourself to be above INT X. You also have asserted your knowledge of the exact limitations an INT X person would have, which seems fairly impossible since the INT scale in an RPG is totally arbitrary.

Wisdom usually seems to be ignored, and I've noticed that people will play low-INT/decent-WIS characters as fools. This is probably because WIS lowers your Will saves, and nobody wants to spend the whole campaign Held or Dominated. But a low INT character with a decent WIS should not be a reckless fool. They should be hesitant, because they don't know a lot of things, and thus have a hard time anticipating the exact nature of dangers they know to be present.

It also seems that DM's are less likely to declare themselves as being terribly wise, and hence able to declare how various levels of wisdom would act, while many DM's are quick to declare what a genius they are. "Well, we role-players are, as you surely know, significantly smarter than most people."

Charisma is the ultimate hot mess. I have met a LOT of gamers who have played low CHA characters and I wanted to assure them that they did not have to do anything differently. "I tell the bartender to go shove a stool up his bum." "Why?" "Because I have a CHA of 9." "Dude, you're a smelly guy who has never had a girlfriend. You are clearly well below 'average' Charisma in real life, but you don't actively pick fights with everyone."

The problem with a lot of these stats, I think, comes from how we perceive ourselves. The minute you start telling other people how to roleplay their mental stats, you've unwittingly revealed your own desire to view yourself as the ultimate authority on knowledge, wisdom, and charm. Sure, there are people smarter than you, but you are among the intelligentsia who can appreciate their work (and they're kinda freaks when you get down to it). You are the arbiter of "common sense," which makes it kinda depressing when your friends don't get the "obvious" solution to your trap room. And, it is vitally important that you be allowed to roleplay your interactions with NPC's, because you are just that awesome at acting and comedy.

Honestly, though, I forgive you all your hubris because I'm probably just as enchanted with my own reflection.

Just don't tell me how to play my character.

One of the things that always pops up in the eternal battle between HARDCORE GAMISTS and Fluffy Bunny Narrativists is the Gamist assertion that "Good players know when to run away!"

It seems to me that, in 3.5/Pathfinder, retreat is a fairly crap option. I really don't see a lot of situations where the party can actually say, "Oh, this isn't going well. Time to dash."

As a caveat, I will say that I played a Cleric who got his behind royally kicked by a Colossal Scorpion. Clearly a round away from death and being crushed in it's massive claw, I made a nearly impossible Concentration check and cast Plane Shift to a plane saturated with Positive Energy so I could heal. However, I wouldn't say this is a typical situation, and it's limited to spellcasters. This also wasn't a full party retreat. We killed the monster.

However, let's look at the sort of situations a party might try to run from.

At low levels, you don't have the hit point pool needed to say, "Oh, this fight isn't going well." You just start dropping.

Non-magical characters who wear armor (or are short) will find themselves unable to outpace nearly every enemy.

A party unprepared for incorporeals might want to run away, but how do you run from something that flies faster you than you run and can go through walls?

Many enemies, in addition to being faster than the party, never get tired.

It seems like the option to retreat gets presented in a mechanically agnostic fashion, like the "(F)ight, (T)alk, (R)etreat" of old AD&D Gold Box computer games.

Has retreat come up in your games? How was it handled? Did it work? Rules-wise, should it have worked?

What requires more extraordinary talent: building a house with no deadline, or building a chair in the middle of a barroom brawl (in six seconds to a minute depending on edition)?

In Tolkien's works, magic items were all over the damn place. The elves didn't make anything that wasn't magic. "Hrm, you're going outside? Better take a magic cloak, magic boots, magic food, magic rope, and a magic weapon." Arwen's intimate apparel probably had weather adaptation and anti-bacterial properties.

It is implied that humans and dwarves were equally prolific crafters of magic items, but their kingdoms had been wrecked over three ages of war against a dark god and his endless hordes.

And most of these items were exactly the sort of thing that grognards go into raging fits about: +X weapons and armor, and unremarkable "utility" magic.

The ability to cast a spell, however, was kind of a big deal. "He cured a hedgehog! Our venomous bites and webs will not avail us here! Run!" Spells were largely the domain of archangel/demigod types, and they seemed loathe to use them unless they were fighting their own kind.

This is roughly how it ought to be. It is completely illogical to think that it would be harder to sit down in a workshop and magically make a sword better than it is to spit fire out of your fingertips at oncoming enemy goblins.

In most myths, magic items aren't even made by spellcasters. They're made by noteworthy craftsmen, or comprised of special materials, or they've been quenched in the sweat of a virgin who went jogging on a Thursday.

Now, game designers were reluctant to make rules for actually crafting magic items, because the guy who shoots fire out of his hands every day is supposed to live in a world where magic is "rare and special." But they eventually included rules where making any sort of magic item required the expenditure of Constitution or experience.

This reflected the attitude towards magic items that would constitute "artifacts" or "major macguffins" in D&D. Sure, Sauron poured the majority of his power into the One Ring, but elves were sure as hell not dropping dead from CON loss after making twelve Lembas biscuits. They also didn't get progressively worse at baking Lembas with every completed loaf.

"I can't remember how to make the magic bread!"

"Calm down, Fingolfin! It happens. You just need to go kill orcs for a few days and you'll remember how to make Lembas."

"That... doesn't make any sense!"

It seems that in any conversation about magic item creation, magic items shops, or magic item distribution, a certain canard always pops up.

"I don't want to give my characters magic items with any regularity because I want magic to be SPECIAL!!!"

But, magic was never special in any incarnation of D&D, because D&D has always had the Cleric and Magic-User.

Player 1: "Hey, I'd like instantly heal wounds, up to and including raising the dead."

DM: "Okay, here's a Cleric."

Player 2: "I want to call fire and lightning down from the sky every gosh darn day."

DM: "Okay, here's a Magic-User."

Player 3: "I want to stab things."

DM: "Okay, here's a Fighter."

Player 3: "Do you think I could have a cool sword, and maybe some kind of gloves that make me really strong? Jesus and Merlin over here could probably make that sort of thing..."

DM: "WHAT?!!??! WHAT?!?!?!? MAGIC ITEMS ARE SPECIAL YOU NOOB! YOU DON'T JUST SEE MAGIC EVERY DAY!!!"

Player 2: "Woah... I just disintegrated a dragon. Groovy."

Player 3: "Yeah... I totally do see magic every day. I'm travelling with two incredibly powerful spellcasters."

DM: "But that's different!!!"

Player 3: "How?"

DM: "Because magic items are special!!! You don't just see magic every day!"

Player 1: "Whoops... let me put your arm back on for you..."

From a game design perspective, getting the next +1 to your sword has been necessary since the day "can only be hit with a +X weapon or better" found it's way into a monster's stat block. You will never get past the first level of the Temple of Elemental Evil in 1E, for instance, without some way to hurt Earth Elementals.

Some people even complain that Wizards in 3.P getting two spells/level violates the "Magic is Special" concept. Back in the day, you know, you were at the mercy of whatever scrolls/enemy spellbooks you could find for new spells. Which, ironically, just means that the GM was obligated to hand out more magical treasure.

"Bah! In my first campaign, magic was special! We fought nothing but orcs and trolls from levels 1-20! The Magic-User couldn't cast anything but Light, Knock, and Gandalf's Mildly Irritating Acorn Fire! The Cleric's holy symbol was stolen by thieves and never seen again! There was no healing except for healing potions they found in treasure chests, and most of those potions were actually bottles of orc urine!"

The Barely There - The BT is the master of invisibility and inaudibility. He has 20 ranks of stealth with a favored terrain of gaming table. Those times that you have no choice but to be aware of his existence, he seems almost embarrassed that he failed to slip under the collective radar. He struggles with the unfamiliar conventions of speech long enough to say, "I'm following him," then takes a bathroom break and wriggles out of the house through the plumbing.

When it's his turn to GM he... Disappears.

Mr. Women Issues - MWI tends to play nothing but nymphomaniacal, cat-girl, stripper-ninjas. Positive attributes in a female are flexibility, desire for coitus, and irrational attraction to unemployed fat guys. Will eventually try to move to Japan and disappear without a trace.

When it's his turn to GM he... Runs a campaign where the Big Bad is a frigid lesbian and the friendly NPCs are wacky failures.

The Begrudging Role Player - The BRP would honestly rather be doing something else, but God cursed him with nerdy friends. He will seize on any conversational tangent to derail the campaign. If forced to role play, he will derive his own twisted amusement from the situation and do things like: taunt the king, repeatedly demand combat stats for his genitalia, randomly massacre an orphanage, etc.

When it's his turn to GM he... Rocks fall, everyone dies with their head smashed into another PCs crotch or butt.

The Twit of Horrors - The purpose of RPGs is to kill the entire party repeatedly, so that the few survivors can feel like they accomplished something. Sorta like how being in a crowd during a mass shooting event makes you a badass if you didn't get shot. They will constantly introduce "old school" rulings and kill party members with their barbarian because they still have rounds of rage left for the day and that's what Gary would have wanted, damn it. If he role plays, it will be a one dimensional character defined by an annoying quirk, like a flatulent dwarf. "Ach! That was a floor shaker lad! Ach!"

When it's his turn to GM he... Advises you to keep three or four characters ready to go because you're going to go through them quickly.

Mr. Edition Dyslexia - Will advise you that you can't move after an attack unless you've got Haste on you which you'll need to make a saving throw not to die from as you age one year after you roll doubles in Monopoly. He means well, but any situation will prompt a seemingly unrelated ruling based on what seemed right at the time.

When it's his turn to GM he... Gets into table flipping rules arguments and frequently resorts to "Gary said the DM was the FINAL arbiter of the rules!"