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I've heard stories of GMs who have forced their players to either not min-max or roleplay their dump stat, but I've rarely heard things happen in the opposite direction.
Have you ever explicitly role-played that your 18 strength fighter wakes up and breaks out the free weights he carries with him everywhere? Or that your 18 con barbarian puts in his 10k before lunch? I've seen the 7 strength wizard with dainty hands and 8 con sorcerer with ashthma, but I feel like in most cases players just assume the stats speak for themselves when they're high enough.
Half-Nymph Bard whom played her brokenly high intellect and charisma as being an adorably persuasive puppeteer whom knew how to use her endearing charm to manipulate the masses. she was a bit of a politician at heart, and people tended to love her due to her sweet, kind and amiable nature. think of that one friend's cute niece or younger sister you think is so cute and vulnerable, that you want to protect her and draw out your big brother instinct. aka the anime cliche known as Moe.
a minmaxed elven witch whom rather than being a scholar like you would expect from her high intellect, was an adaptable tactical genius whom derived many of her tactical lessons from her time being bullied for being the daughter of a perpetually drunk and abusive Grey Elf mother and an enslaved yet abused Drow father. not only did she know a lot about tactics, she knew a lot about foreign cultures and Superstitions, tying a lot of Japanese superstitions about crimson strings to the Greek Goddess Arachne through the concept of the crimson web of fate. as if Greece and Japan where really that close, she praised Lolth, but called the spider queen by her birth name, Arachne and referred to her as the Weaver as well.
The simple fact is it may be very difficult to RP a really high stat.
Can you realistically roleplay an 18 Charisma? Or Intelligence? Or Wisdom? If you could just make yourself that likable, charismatic, and smooth, everyone would do it. If you could just instantly make yourself as smart as a genius and talk and think the way they do everyone would do it. If you could just become one of the wisest people in the world with that shrewd of common sense everyone would do it.
All you can be asked, is to do your best in trying to be a genius or charismatic. Its far easier to ask someone to "dumb" his abilities down than it is to say "Why aren't you being likable enough/smart enough? RP your stats better!"
with a high Int, or High Cha, i usually ask the DM for hints because despite being Genius IQ IRL, i can't keep up with the characters i play, and being not very charismatic IRL, i give summaries and expect the group to leave it up to their imaginations.
but i don't tie appearance to mental stats like charisma, i tie it to the actual physical stats in some way,
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All you can be asked, is to do your best in trying to be a genius or charismatic. Its far easier to ask someone to "dumb" his abilities down than it is to say "Why aren't you being likable enough/smart enough? RP your stats better!"
That's interesting. The converse to that though is if someone were to drop intelligence down to seven, they would be expected to RP a dumb guy.
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can people overcome their social anxiety or self-consciousness enough during a given session to play the character they are capable of playing?
there are times when I can sell a ketchup Popsicle to a woman in white gloves because I know I am really good at what I do
there are times when I doubt myself so hard and am so scared I am going to fail that I want to throw up and then hide and then throw up some more while I am hiding
there are times when I can walk into a room and know that I can be funniest and most charming person in that room, regardless of who is in there because I think I am just basically rad
there are times when I cannot walk into any room without feeling like I should not be in that room because I think I suck pretty bad and am worse than everybody else
there are times when I look in the mirror and smile because I know I can make someone smile just by smiling at them
there are times when I look in that mirror and wonder how I am going to get through the day because I do not want to smile at myself or think I deserve anyone smiling at me ever
I think there are a lot of people who can play an 18 or more in a lot of stats but sometimes they see themselves as a 7 and/or are afraid other people see them as a 7 and/or think that if they try for an 18 than everyone else will think they have an 18 in being a self-centered holier-than-thou better-than-you d-bag
edit: sorry I thought this was livejournal, my bad
j/k I have feels sometimes and think a lot about things that matter to me
I played a cleric of Kord who was way into physical fitness. SO much so he started a jogging club in the city of Cauldron. Every morning - 25 laps around the lake! He did have excellent physical stats but was only an OK cleric (16 Wis 12 Cha vs. 18 Str and 16 Con - all rolled 4d6 in order). He was a lot of fun.
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I generally roleplay all my stats. Though, in fairness, physical stats don't usually require as much effort.
High Int is easily played as long as you're fairly intelligent simply by putting in more effort, researching game related stuff during the time between games, and the fact that in combat you have at least an order of magnitude more time than your character to think things through.
High Wisdom should basically be played by being careful and methodical, and working to be the voice of reason and realism in the party...going with the good plan rather than the hilarious one is a good example.
High Charisma is the hardest to roleplay if you don't have it in real life, since it amounts to sheer force of personal magnetism, but describing your character as pretty and compelling can help, as can putting points into the social skills so you're actually quite good at them.
High Con is either inherent or the result of exercise, or both...so having your character exercise is really all the roleplaying you can put in. Ditto high Strength, though in both cases describing your character in an appropriate manner can also help.
Dexterity can represent a number of things, and you can and should decide which apply, but having high Dex characters demonstrate their prowess casually while at leisure is one of the better ways to roleplay it. I had an Elven Rogue who spun knives around her fingers casually whenever she wasn't doing anything else at the moment, for example.
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My Monk has a 22 Wisdom , 7 INT 7 CHA, but his WIS only applies to one thing: the bow. So he's almost hilariously incompetent at everything else.
I'd imagine it is a lot easier to roleplay high physical stats over mental stats. I can easily imagine being stronger or faster, but not so much smarter. I think Charisma would be the hardest. It's why I don't penalize for what someone says (barring extreme circumstances) since it can be difficult to be charismatic.