Thanks DnD

"Charisma is about sex appeal" is funny, but that's not really entirely accurate. It's about motivating others towards your goals whatever that may be, having a presence that commands attention and being a good communicator. That's why charisma helps disparate skills like lying, persuading, intimidating, and performing. Sex appeal may superficially help some of those things, but so does a half-giant that makes you piss yourself with their mere presence, or an old fat guy who speaks with clarity of conviction and intelligence. Ain't nobody want to fuck Winston Churchill, and he was an asshole as well. But he was a very charismatic figure, still.

One of the things I liked about the Chronicles of Darkness system is it cleared this up nicely. Stats were in a 3x3 grid.
One axis was physical, mental, social
The other was Power, Finesse, Resistance.
Want to shove something? Physical + Power. That's strength.
Want to figure out a riddle? Mental + Finesse. That's ~~Dexterity~~ Wits. (Edit: wrote dexterity originally, meant Wits)
Command attention? Social + Power. That's the Presence stat.
Lie and misdirect? Social + Finesse. Stat was called Manipulation.
Now you can have a character that's commanding without also being a natural liar and flirt. DND doesn't help let you do that because the concepts are bundled together into a single stat.
(You could invest separately into like Expression for making speeches and Deception for lying, of course)
Humans are rated 1 to 5, where a 5 is the peak of human capability. Presence 5 is like AAA movie stars and great leaders.
Of course, if you add supernaturals to your game a starting chump vampire could have seven presence if they take Majesty as their power, and become a nearly irresistible magnet of attention.
- Want to figure out a riddle? Mental + Finesse. That’s Dexterity.
  Wait, wouldn't it make sense to figure out a riddle with Intelligence? And for Dexterity to be Physical + Finesse?

Int is knowing what you're talking about

Wis is knowing when to talk

Cha is when people listen to you

What was the old saying?
Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom Is knowing not to bake it into a cake.
- wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad
  charisma is selling salsa

The words in the pictures have some diabolical keming

jpegging a pdf will do that for you
- I hate it when I be jpegging my pdf in hospital then her doc walks in on us
!keming@lemmy.world

If 10 is average my stats are way too low.

Eh, a ten will give you about a 50/50 roll if something is "easy," and only about a 25% chance if something is "medium" difficulty. Sounds about right for me.
Am I gonna shut my damn mouth when I should? 75% of the time, no.
10 is average for an adventuring hero. Not necessarily for most "civilians" if you want to call them that.
Edit: I stand corrected. Must have confused it with some other system or an older edition.
- 12.5 is average for an adventuring hero using the standard array plus typical adjustments for race.
  Even if you roll 3d6 across the board with no adjustments, old school, 10.5 is average.
- 5e commoners are 10 across the board.
- Incorrect, 10 is the average for the average human.

CHA is knowing what to say to get what you want.

A paladin uses CHA because they have to know exactly what to say to their deity to get the result they need. If they can't rizz up their gods, they get no power.

Paladin doesn't use CHA with their god, they use it to lure the common people TO their god. So they gets more powah.
- Yeah the original description sounds more like a warlock. Which, what's the diff between a hexblade and a pally really
- A fun campaign i played was where the DM set up the scenario where I, a high level Paladin, gave up on my Diety and basically switched religions. That one was fun.

Those are SO not in the order I remember back when I used to pay.

It was:

STR
\ INT
\ WIS
\ DEX
\ CON
\ CHA.

As an added bonus, I remember the coin on the character sheets as being:

Gold
\ Silver
\ Copper
\ Platinum
\ Electrum

Probably helps to know I played in the late 70’s when campaigns like Keep on the Borderlands was a new thing and came in a box.

Hey, I’m all for nostalgia, but reordering it to separate the physical stats from the mental ones was a very good idea. I’m pretty sure my first game back when I was… 10? (long time ago)… also used the Str Int Wis order. But you know… that order got changed REAL fast… 2e, iirc. And good riddance.
Wasn't it copper-silver-electrum-gold-platinum? That would be the order of value as I remember it but I haven't looked at the boxed stuff in years.
- You’d think, but nope. Not as I recall.
I think it was 3e that changed it so that the stats are grouped as physical, then mental. And decimalized the coinage, for that matter.

Wisdom is such a weird attribute in ttrpgs, it is often overloaded with the concept of perception. But at the same time I don't necessarily think it should be split to it's own thing, more attributes aren't necessarily better.

I think fallout's S.P.E.C.I.A.L works quite well.
Wisdom isn't a thing by itself, it's split between perception, charisma, and intelligence, for the most part.
- Intelligence is being able to describe why rain exists and why it is raining. Wisdom is understanding that you can do the above while not standing in a rainstorm

My Constitution is 0.

I was more a 00's kid into consoles, so this was introduced to me via Fallout 3, then Dark Souls

How charisma works: just say "hey baby". you're all welcome

Dex is clearly green though

Hey baby ;)

Vitality: Whatever it is that makes wild hogs unkillable.