@Thenomain said:
I think, @surreality (& others), my question in response to those is: Whose responsibility is it that your character be useful in a scene? A lot of people take it upon themselves to make sure that their character is useful for the game, though they still want to role-play a character with different traits.
I think this is why you ultimately get two things: First, the people who cripple their socials and mentals for combat, then still play as if they have high social and mental stats (which is rightly called 'cheating', really). The second is 'we need ridiculous levels of XP' because people want not just to be able to do things, but to be able to do all the things, and do all the things well.
In today's PrP-Driven scenarios, where is there a place for a dwarf who works at Baskin Robbins and takes care of his invalid mother? Where in WoD does it tell you that it's okay for your Eternal Spring 2 (Heal Everyone) to be powered by a mere Medicine 2? Would your average Mu*er go to you, or go to Tammy Twinkery who tho her character concept is "flower girl" has Medicine 5?
I think the answer is actually simpler: if you can explain and justify the why, stat what you can effectively for what you want to be and what you want to do. To address @Bennie as well, there's nothing especially 'pure RPer' or 'pure Rules Lawyer' about it, from my perspective. It could be argued that the 'pure RPer' isn't bothering to flesh out their mental and social stats because 'I'm just going to RP that, not roll it' as much as the 'pure RPer' in the example would stat up the things they RP without dice and then have no points left over for physical stats, for instance. The 'pure Rules Lawyer' may argue that you can't RP being charming when you have manipulation 1 on your sheet as easily as they might insist that 'who cares how you got Manipulation 4, you totally need that to use PowerX really well, so buy it.' Most players are a mix of most of those things, really.
Use specialties, and use them a lot, if that healer flower girl's medical skills are not broad-based, but uniquely tied to that one permutation of 'medicine' that comes from using that power. It's a realistic reflection of the circumstance: she doesn't know All The Things about medicine, but she may know the ins-and-outs and conditionals of using that application of it like the back of her hand, and there's a way to reflect this in the stats without needing medicine 5/intelligence 5. When there's a mechanism to do this that doesn't require the huge core stats, it also means there's less XP required to effectively create that more realistic character build. On games that don't allow or limit spec stacking, you'll see more XP bloat desired because the stats have to go up instead; sadly you can't exactly put it in place later in the game once the bloat occurs, because then people will just do both to an unintended extreme.
Also, the 'bestest baker of cakes' (old example that serves well in this case) might suck in a fight, but their skills are, realistically speaking, survival skills in an abstract sense. When you see a zombie going after that guy who made you the best birthday cake ever vs. a random stranger, you're probably going to remember that chocolately goodness and come to the baker's aid faster. Weird, roundabout, but still realistic in that on some level, we're selfish creatures: we like baker dude more than we like random stranger. (Swap out 'somebody we're screwing' for the baker, and it becomes more obvious, it just needn't be the actual case.)
Also, if going for a 'less obviously useful' character type: if you're going to show up for a plot that doesn't involve your specific skills, you must think creatively. 'I'm going to gun the engine and ram it with my car', 'While they investigate the trap in the tomb, I'm going to see if there are spirits in the area and ask them if they've seen anything strange or know how to disarm the traps', etc. Sometimes, there's not a lot you can effectively do. Sometimes, 'run away' is a real option! It's entirely valid. It adds story to the scene if nothing else, and while some folks won't enjoy that, others will. Just let the ST know in advance, if they're limiting player quantity in the scene especially: "I'm not a fighter, Joe the Baker might just run for it if it looks too hairy, but I'd like to be there to become involved with the plot this scene is a part of in whatever way I can, even if that means having seen what horrors my buddies faced and making them a good meal after the fight to get their strength back up and talk with them about what happened as everyone gathers their thoughts after the conflict." Depending on the game, that can be a real niche for a character to fill.
I have no answer, but the waters are very muddy, and the games we play tend to force us to have the maximum stat for our power stat possible. Maybe if WoD wasn't designed to do that, or if we didn't have XP coming out of the ground in fountains.
My general impression is that the scale is not quite what or where it was intended to be. While I'm the worst person to comment on anybody else's math, HR's point about what WW pegs as their 'professional' level of a skill (3) always seemed off to me, generally for the reason cited: the chances of success at that 'professional' level wouldn't keep an actual professional in their job for very long in the real world. I'd call 3 'apprentice', 4 'professional', and 5 'expert' -- but that's just me. It's a small scale that needs to cover a very broad range, which in itself is difficult and limiting.
