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Playing to your stats
How do you do it when you're not XXXXX?

So... this is a problem in any game, not just this one.

How do you play to your stats?

We all know what it's like to play a strong man, or someone with superlative grace boundless endurance. Physical characteristics are easy enough to both imagine and roleplay.

It starts to become a problem when you get to Charisma, Intelligence and to a lesser degree Perception. How to you play a character who has really high stats in one of those fields? At some point you reach your limitations. If your character is a super genius and you are not? RPing one is really hard. Things your character should get that you don't make you look dumb when you are not.

Similarly, Charisma. Someone with high Charisma should effortlessly float through social scenes. People should like you, even if you can't project the winsome smile and attitude that should come easily.

Yes, behind the scenes there are tests and those tests help you get the benefit of your Stats, but how do you RP it? Note, it also becomes exponentially harder when English is not your native language, because now not only are you fighting against your personal limitations, but also a built in language barrier as well.

If I have massive intelligence, I personally am not a super genius.

If I have massive charisma, I personally am not a politician or star.

Just looking for a discussion on what people have done and if there are any ways that the game can help you RP to these softer, harder stats.

This can certainly be a struggle especially for new players and those who are new to the medium of mudding itself. Just as many people seek mentors out to learn OOC system from ICly - I recommend the same when understanding how to represent your stats.

While a corpo rat starfucker may not appeal to your Sinead O'Connor archetype - they can certainly demonstrate how to wield charismatic power on live television.

The same can be said for a hotshot decker or chemist whose big brain bulge leaves others paling in comparison.

Is everyone a good example? No. Anor no. That's okay though - it's always a work in progress and this is a game. Do your best and no one will fault you for it.

Will people completely misconstrue your RP or otherwise respond in ways you don't expect? Yes. Hell yes, they will. That's okay too though - it's healthy for your PC to represent different things to different people. One person's adorable vagrant child is another homicidal maniac.

At its heart, Sindome is a social game. Use those social experiences (and dare I say experiments) to inform your own growth not just for your character but for you as a player as well.

Like all roleplaying and acting, research can help a ton to get you in character.

Intelligence: Doing live searches on Wikipedia or Google or YouTube works wonders for RPing intelligence. Suppose your character should know things about cars, and drag force comes up as a topic. Here's your chance to shine and share a topic ICly. "With the seating design of the Cruiser, you're going to get more drag force, so it's not ideal for racing, despite its aesthetic..." Or, should your character know what a phrase means in a foreign language? Do a quick search and play off it.

Low intelligence: You can mix things up by making poor decisions on your character's part. Not necessarily ones that cripple your character, but rather give RP opportunities for others. If someone is educating your character on something, you could regurgitate it in a simpler fashion that is simultaneously correct and incorrect. "Leaning forward makes the bike think you want to go faster, so it gives you increased acceleration." You could also butcher popular idioms or phrases.

Charisma: This is a matter of studying that character or characters you want to emulate. Whether a hero, villain, or otherwise, study what makes them likable, what makes people want to be around them, and what their weaknesses are. There's almost certainly a character study on YouTube for every popular fictional character ever. Watch those for inspiration on how to behave in a manner you enjoy. Also, study the Sindome playerbase and see what they like. You can have your character ask other characters what they want to see, if they've ever done anything embarrassing, or otherwise. In terms of actually roleplaying, be sure to acknowledge other characters' actions in your emotes. Extroverted personalities that go out of their way to RP with many different people will give and get more RP than introverted ones. Just going out of your apartment to RP can make your character be seen by more characters, which is an important part of a popular reputation. And people like being RP'd with. Your writing skill does come into play here, too, because your ability to effectively emote limits your RP in the sometimes fast-paced nature that some people are capable of RPing at.

Low charisma: Your average PubSIC troll character who says things without caring about how much it affects their reputation or likability.

My final piece of advice is to not rank your character up beyond your ability to play your character. If it ever becomes too stressful to roleplay high intelligence or charisma, find a healthy limit. Some high-tier jobs require characters who can consistently play to those upper limits, so don't stress about reaching the top. Focus on having fun at a level you're capable and comfortable at.

Nobody hates other players or thinks lower of them if they can't play at a higher level. Even if your character is an obnoxious asshole or an attention-starved pubSIC talker, it's all in good fun and you're adding something special to the active world of Sindome.

I would like to second @Reefer's point regarding Finding Out ICly. I've XHELPed staff when I was unsure which stats and skills would apply to a specific thing I wanted to do in RP, and was informed in no uncertain terms that I was to seek a mentor ICly for this.

I didn't feel it necessary to question staff further over the implications of such things but by my own thinking (please correct me if I'm making any wrong assumptions here, staff), this does leave me the leeway to plausibly assume that my mentor IC is correct. In a way, this means that your mentor's opinion of how your stats and skills should affect your RP actions (demeanor, emotes, etc.) would form your subjective reality and should be your main guide on how well you are able to do something. It'd be fair game so logn as you don't maliciously misinterpret this to powergame.

But that's for determining how you should limit yourself. As for feeling that your roleplaying can't reach your in-character Charisma and Intelligence... honestly I've never found that difficult. I mean... being charismatic doesn't have to mean that people like you. It just means you're really hot in the way you look and do or say things. As for Intelligence... well, it's just not wisdom. You can act "stupid" and it's not bad roleplay.

Charisma is also a thing that I feel benefits a lot from FOIC in particular because Sindome is a social game. If you, the OOC player, wants your character, the IC person, to be charismatic, then it's really just a matter of talking to other PCs a lot and learning the little nuances of how they're roleplayed and using it to your advantage, which would translate in-universe as your character being a smooth operator who understand people. Obviously don't smallworld with this.

Intelligence:

Something to add here is that Int is a big part of character memory and, as such, even remembering things that you're told is an Int-based process. Has your character seen someone work on something but doesn't have the skills or know-how to do it directly? A low Int character likely wouldn't bother trying to grasp the fundamentals and, if they did, who's to say that they would manage remembering how so-and-so did such-and-such? The opposite is the high or moderate Int character, who may very well come away with newfound knowledge in having seen someone work, even if they're too unskilled to do it themselves.

On top of that, I second alittlelonger's advice on quick Google searches for high Int and low Int equaling poor decision making. Jump around, do baka shit; make mistakes anyway, but make more with lower Int and enjoy the ride to higher Int by learning from those mistakes ICly. Or don't! The choice is yours.

Perception:

Perception's my favorite stat in the game because it's (hot take) so well-represented already by limiting your character's ability to notice what's going on around them. Are you a high Per character? Pose that shit! Don't just "gl name" on your end- catch people and things out of the corner of your eye. Turn an ear to a conversation to make it known that you're tuned into it.

This isn't some hard rule where you have to emote every time you look at someone, but if you're wanting to express how perceptive your character is? Let people know that you're the type that watches and listens. Maybe even set a @temp_place to show that you're watching faces in a crowd, taking in the details of vehicles passing by, or some other twist.

I do know that keeping up with scroll can be difficult in some situations and that it might feel like it reflects poorly on a high Per character. Even still, someone who keeps up with everything around them isn't necessarily any more perceptive than someone who can read a single person VERY well. If you as the player find yourself in a position where you're better with one type of "perceiving" over the other? Own that, specialize in it, and make it their thing.

Charisma:

I'll bow out on advice for this because, admittedly, it is a very tricky one to me. You're not alone here. I've had characters across RPGs with low Chr that seem to be more likeable than ones I've played to be high Chr and vice versa.

Something that I've noticed is that low Chr characters (or characters that I perceive as low Chr) often don't talk a lot or interface much with others. That they play low Charisma as being introverted or avoiding interaction. While that's a surefire way to make sure that you never come across as charismatic, I'm not sure that it's best for longevity in a game like SD.

Mileage may vary depending on what's fun to you, but I think there's an additional takeaway in knowing that if you reach out and network, you are already projecting more of an image than someone who talks very little or waits to be spoken to.

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Cinder, alittlelonger, and Reefer all hit the nail on the head in saying that nobody will fault you for working your way into any of these stats. Watch how other players with seemingly high X do their biz, then emulate, mutate, and make it your own.