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But at the same time, do you penalize extraordinary roleplaying because they lack the ranks/stats on their character sheet to back it up?
I certainly don't penalize it, but I also don't reward it. What most people refer to roleplaying and is in fact acting is not a necessary skill to play this game. Rewarding someone for being a good actor is like rewarding someone for having good handwriting or color-coordinated dice.
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This is why our group calls for knowledge checks. I'm one of those weird people that reads monster manuals for fun.
Your age (and mine) show. The older Moster manuals were a way more pleasant read than the Bestiary. The Bestiary and the 3.x Monster manuals have too many statistics, too little about the ecology and mindset of the creatures.
But at the same time, do you penalize extraordinary roleplaying because they lack the ranks/stats on their character sheet to back it up?
generally speaking, yes. The character's skills and stats create the frame work for the role they are playing. It'd be like Sloth from the Goonies all of a constantly breaking into a Shakespearian worthy soliloquy. That's not what the character is about. Now the occasional play beyond the abilities of the character is fine, but if a player starts to make a habit of it, I'm going to "suggest" they start putting points into relevant skills and abilities, otherwise I consider it gaming the system. My other option is to take into account their terrible CHA or skills and just have people throw rotten tomatoes at them whenever they speak because they are annoying. Thankfully, my group is pretty good about actually playing up to the character's stats and abilities. If someone dumps INT or WIS they're going to play those stats accordingly, etc.
Do you penalize actual player knowledge because their character is a moron?
We haven't had this problem in some time, but when it does occasionally crop up, we just remind the player that their character doesn't know that.
personally I like rolling the skill in question and then playing up to the roll. If I roll a 1, I "accidentally" insult the listener, drop an important piece of information, or some other faux pas.
If I roll good, I try and play that up as well. I've found it to be great exercise in acting/roleplaying.
I am not naturally social or charming, but I think with my decades of Roleplaying, I can fake it really well.