As to the System Analysis, I tend to agree with you about sticking with RAW and enjoying the flavor created by the authors. That said, I also enjoy understanding why they made certain decisions to better understand why they did certain things. With most systems it is really hard to get a definitive grasp of why a developer did something, but FFG has been really good about podcasts discussing their philosophy behind certain creative decisions.

This I can get behind.

but as your gm, if you have intellect 1, I'm telling you now, any clever ideas you come up with I will dismiss, because your character isn't

I wouldn't necessarily say that having a 1 as an intellect score necessarily makes something stupid, as in a d20 system. A 1 score in anything shouldn't prevent a player from narration, or submitting a request for a roll.

Actually, I would suggest that a 1 Intellect is decidedly below average. How far below average would have to be determined by the group, but keep in mind that most animals have a 1 Intellect. Heck, as per RAW a human cannot have a one I would suggest that it may even be stupider than a human can be.

I wouldn't stop a player from narrating or requesting a roll, but both the player and gm should be diligent in monitoring any "good ideas" that come from the player being used by the rest of the party. After all, it would be doubtful that the character would be able to create those ideas.

If a character with one Intellect can't think freely, can a character with one Brawn move freely?

No, but they would not be able to lift as much as an average adult human. They would be considered infirm and sickly. Someone with a 1 Agility would be significantly less agile than a normal human. Perhaps with an injured leg or some such.

There are minimums built into the system for a reason. If you simply look at it from a mechanical perspective you are missing the flavor and consideration of the way the developers created the system, but it is important.

Think of it like an IQ scale. The statistical human norm is around 90 - 110 IQ. Since there are only 6 tiers in an attribute, there is a significant difference between each one. I would suggest for INT around 15 points per tier. So that would lead to...

INT 1 - Between 75 - 89 IQ

INT 2 - Between 90 - 110 IQ

INT 3 - Between 111 - 125 IQ

INT 4 - Between 126 - 140 IQ

INT 5 - Between 141 - 155 IQ

INT 6 - Between 156 - 170 IQ

You may even want to increase the level of difference by another 5 point spread, to be able to include the highest IQ levels. That would lead to approximately...

INT 1 - Between 70 - 89 IQ

INT 2 - Between 90 - 110 IQ

INT 3 - Between 111 - 130 IQ

INT 4 - Between 131 - 150 IQ

INT 5 - Between 151 - 170 IQ

INT 6 - Between 171 - 190 IQ

Regardless of which scale you use, there is a significant difference in the clarity and quality of thought between each tier. A character with an INT of 2 would not be able to create the same plans as an INT 6 character. Likewise, a INT 1 character should not be able to have the same level of creative thought as a INT 2 character.

It is simply using the narrative to help illuminate the mechanics of the system. Otherwise, what would be the point of having any difference in attributes? You should then have a system like FATE that simply uses skills with the assumption that all people are roughly equally intelligent.

I don't see any of this stuff even casually mentioned on the rules.

Because Intellect in this game is really book smarts. There is no Planning skill. For a good reason.

Also, telling players "your character can't think that" is both hard and not really a good idea.

Do you have an example of that done successfully? I'm having trouble picturing it.

Really what comes to mind was Shadowrun 4e dealing with the Matrix. A hacker depended on a good commlink and high program ratings. His mental stats (which logically should also be pretty high) did not matter at all vis a vis hacking or Matrix combat. it was very jarring that the only things that mattered were his gear and skills, not attributes.

I'm too fresh with this sytem to really get too deep with the math.

But with my other preferred game system 4e D&D, everyone has a baseline combat competency (something which EotE doesn't have.) And the numbers are really transparent.

So its really easy to say "You first level fighter has a +5 to hit, +4 to damage base, before any feats or powers" and ignore the ability score rat race. So your fighter doesn't need to have an 18 STR to feel/be effective. Ability scores then become used pretty much for skills only. So your wizard doesn't need to be a high level genius to do wizard things in combat.

A hafling fighter becomes just as viable as a half-orc fighter.

Which to me is awesome.

EoTE dice pool system makes that harder, but I'm sure there is some way to do such a thing.

The thing is, with this system every skill is realistically viable for a situation; I see people saying that combat stacking is absolutely necessary but I tend to disagree. So, in my opinion Agility isn't the 'god skill' and things like Presence or Intellect aren't 'dump skills'. On the rails campaigns may be true for the situation of combat, where a GM throws in a series of events which absolutely require combat to accomplish a goal. When a sandbox system is in play, every skill can be used for almost any situation with varying difficulties, even much disregarded Knowledge skills.

One of my campaigns, my group avoided combat as much as they possibly could, and the group included two PCs that had Mercenary Soldier specializations. Rather than fighting, they opted to come up with solutions around obstacles I gave them. They preferred interrogation and intimidation, capturing people with stealth, having one person sneak into places and unlock them, while other were spotters of skullduggery as distractions... They used Knowledge skills to think through building schematics, etc. I think they got pretty close to using many of the skills in their repertoire, with one combat encounter I through in the midst, where they let the last guy go so they could escape (They were more concerned with living than fighting).

Every skill is viable in this game - even having the face trying to talk down NPCs in combat. If anything, this game is less about combat than many of the table tops I've played before; yes it does happen, but realistically it can be avoided if you as a GM allow your players to avoid it if they choose.

But Star Wars is an action adventure/franchise. There is a lot of combat. Pick up the books. They're are a ton of pictures of NPCs holding guns, and pictures of ships being flown.

Everyone is going to clearly and simply benefit from having a good agility and ranks in ranged light. Ranks in Knowledge Education is a goof bit less sexy and less easily useful.

The amount of ship flying/gun battles vs Xenology checks is going to be pretty different. And they sure aren't the same level of fun to most people.

Not to say that this game doesn't try to find balance between different Characteristics and Skills, but its not equal.

Ugh... See this is why messing with characteristics isn't the greatest idea; now it's simply opened up a massive can of worms with analysis on Characteristics, importance, how to 'punish' players for making stats too low... This is what I mean by, when you make significant adjustments to the RAW, it has unforeseen consequences. Telling a player how to narrate defeats the purpose of a narrative game. Narrating based on statistics really isn't really in the spirit of the game; palyers are supposed to roll and narrate based on their results, not based off their Brawn or Intellect Score. A person with 2 Intellect and 4 Knowledge Training is consider the same as a person with 4 Intellect and 2 Knowledge Training. The same with Brawn; for all intensive purposes, a person with 4 Brawn and 1 Melee has the same level of aptitude, strength or whatever with their attack as 1 Brawn 4 Melee...

When it comes to how many dice you can roll, I don't think it matters. You can lack proficiency in something, roll and succeed and a person who is proficient can roll and fail. You roll and narrate, that's the point of the game. Not, base your narration off your characteristics. I don't think that dice rolling has little to no flavor with advantages, triumph, threats and despairs. I also think, that if a player isn't proficient at something, they can try a roll and fail; I don't really agree with discouraging a player from narrating, or making dice roll attempt at anything, even if they have a low characteristic in something - it's fair to let them succeed or fail, and narrate the outcome.

I think there is no correlation between making a house rule on allowing characters more customization and any of the other things you mentioned.

Discussion isn't bad.

And in my game so far my players have avoided any combat they could.

But Star Wars is an action adventure/franchise. There is a lot of combat. Pick up the books. They're are a ton of pictures of NPCs holding guns, and pictures of ships being flown.

Everyone is going to clearly and simply benefit from having a good agility and ranks in ranged light. Ranks in Knowledge Education is a goof bit less sexy and less easily useful.

The amount of ship flying/gun battles vs Xenology checks is going to be pretty different. And they sure aren't the same level of fun to most people.

Not to say that this game doesn't try to find balance between different Characteristics and Skills, but its not equal.

Here's the thing, Knowledge skills are only underused if the GM isn't effectively implementing them; Xeneology is both huge for Doctors AND combat - in my opinion, Xenology checks should be run when a doctor of one species attempts a medical procedure on a member of another species, especially if its their first time doing it. From a narrative standpoint, it's like a doctor diagnosing wounds. I don't think this concept is implemented much, because I don't think a lot of players or GMs want to go through the process of forcing Xeno checks each medicinal use. But Xeno successes and Failures add boosts and setbacks to Medicine checks. Also, Xeno checks can give PCs an edge when looking for a weak point on a particularly tough critter; PC 1 'Oh man, this thing is whooping us bad, what can we do against it?" PC 2 "I think I've seen/read about these before (Xeno check) there's got a soft spot in their abdomen, we should all aim for that!" group gains a boost die making attacks against this creature.

Scenario 2: Big Bad Black Sun Vigo needs your group to find a rare type of mineral; Core Worlds Check failed... Guess it's not there, Outer Rim Check Success, "looks like we can find that mineral in the Outer Rim, we should head there and take a closer look at those planets" In additional, further Out Rim checks can be taken with boost dice to figure out which system, planet and in which mountain the group can go to find that mineral. This same idea can be used in conjunction with Lore checks as well...

In reference to combat, you don't have to do it. Yes its there, but combat is 5 out of 33 skills. There is combat in star wars, but there's instances like the Empire Strikes Back, where there's two combat scenes in the entire movie. Return of the Jedi has two as well. It's there, but saying that those skills are used more readily than the others, I have to disagree with; it's the campaign your running. Hell, like I've said, I've got no problem with a Politico running Charm/Deceit checks in the middle of a battle in an attempt to get the NPCs to surrender, or a Scout/Survivalist using Survival to calm a beast. There's nothing that says you can't do it and it allows non-combatants to really add something to fights if they don't want to pick up a blaster; a Politico with a high Presence running an opposed Charm check against a low Willpower Thug may just as effective as a good blaster.

I think there is no correlation between making a house rule on allowing characters more customization and any of the other things you mentioned.

Discussion isn't bad.

There is now; people have been speaking about how lower and higher characteristics should lock a player into a certain type of roleplay, like this is a d20 system where 6 int means you can speak common properly. Just because you have lower Characteristics than another PC doesn't mean you have to RP differently - BUT when people start talking about flipping around characteristics and doing 'customization pools', the d20 gets unleashed and now someone has to justify why their 1 Brawn Wookiee makes sense in the Star Wars world, or how their Human is simply more stupid than the rest of his species, so having him at 1 Intellect means he can't speak properly, but a Gand can...

Play your PC how you'd like in regard to a situation, no matter what your stats are and if a roll is required, RP the outcome. You shouldn't be pigeon-holed into a certain IQ bracket or Strength bracket because when the wookiee who has 4 brawn fails an athletics roll and the 2 brawn human succeeds, that pigeonholing doesn't make sense narratively. I know that this paragraph in particular is my opinion, but the CRB doesn't state anything about 1 brawn making a PC RP feeble, or 1 Intellect making PC RP dumb...

I would only consider allowing the dropping of Brawn to 1 and only if the PC was a child. I would not give any extra EXP to spend rather I would give a Boost die to some rolls that one would reasonably expect being a child would be a benifit. I would not allow the dropping of any other Attributes.

Why?

Twi'leks have 1 Brawn.

Are they as weak as a human child?

Do Twi'lek kids have a 0 Brawn?

Why? Because it makes sense to me. Brawn and Agility are the least likely to be made into dump stats and I don't want Players to have dump stats so if a Player wants to lower a stat below 2 (race starting stats aside) it's got to be a real sacrifice or the option isn't going to be there.

As for Twi'lek kids I'd not allow the Brawn drop to 0 but the Player and I would work out something appropriate together.

I don't see any of this stuff even casually mentioned on the rules.

Because Intellect in this game is really book smarts. There is no Planning skill. For a good reason.

Also, telling players "your character can't think that" is both hard and not really a good idea.

Actually Intellect "...measures a character's intelligence, education, mental acuity, and ability to reason and rationalize." CRB pg 16.

Players need to roleplay their characters. This includes any and all attributes, otherwise the attributes are meaningless numbers on a page. Low attributes need to have some sort of justification, just like high ones. No attribute should be a nebulous number that only applies in rolling dice.

Play your PC how you'd like in regard to a situation, no matter what your stats are and if a roll is required, RP the outcome. You shouldn't be pigeon-holed into a certain IQ bracket or Strength bracket because when the wookiee who has 4 brawn fails an athletics roll and the 2 brawn human succeeds, that pigeonholing doesn't make sense narratively. I know that this paragraph in particular is my opinion, but the CRB doesn't state anything about 1 brawn making a PC RP feeble, or 1 Intellect making PC RP dumb...

May I ask, aside from dice rolling, how you describe characters and their attributes? How do you differentiate between them when describing NPCs?

No, the CRB does not list IQ as a table or descriptive quality, but with only 6 tiers of attributes each one should have a meaningful difference. Otherwise, there really is no reason for them to exist.

I tend to agree with you about not wanting to allow lowered stats under species average. From a narrative point of view, they require justification where the average joe does not.

Play your PC how you'd like in regard to a situation, no matter what your stats are and if a roll is required, RP the outcome. You shouldn't be pigeon-holed into a certain IQ bracket or Strength bracket because when the wookiee who has 4 brawn fails an athletics roll and the 2 brawn human succeeds, that pigeonholing doesn't make sense narratively. I know that this paragraph in particular is my opinion, but the CRB doesn't state anything about 1 brawn making a PC RP feeble, or 1 Intellect making PC RP dumb...

May I ask, aside from dice rolling, how you describe characters and their attributes? How do you differentiate between them when describing NPCs?

No, the CRB does not list IQ as a table or descriptive quality, but with only 6 tiers of attributes each one should have a meaningful difference. Otherwise, there really is no reason for them to exist.

I tend to agree with you about not wanting to allow lowered stats under species average. From a narrative point of view, they require justification where the average joe does not.

If there isn't Characteristic lowering, you really won't have to run into this. Everything begins the game with an Intellect of 2 (I believe, though Gand is showing 1 on my Beta GM Cheat sheet. I can't verify because I'm at work and I need my CRB). Therefore, nothing is really stupid, unless you want to make a Droid with one intellect (I think this was by design). At the same time, if base-line is two, I don't see a Characteristic of 1 being that much off from two, if anything, 1 would be 'slightly below average'. I mean, from what we see of Twi'leks, are they really noticeably weaker than humans? If I were to pit a Human against a Twi'lek in a boxing match, I'd bet on the Human, but I hardly doubt a Twi'lek is going to be so hampered by his 1 Brawn that he's going to have difficulty performing typical tasks. Doings 18 pullups, he's gonna fail that check, but lifting a box? He might do it slightly slower than a human.

From a roleplaying perspective, it's difficult. I get what you're saying for a physical description, but when a 3 Agility, 2 Ranged (light) guy can shoot as well as a 2 Agility, 3 Ranged (light) guy can, do I have to 'roleplay' my guy having less agility or less aptitude? I think that's being a little bit over the top.

For me, I think if you want a smarter than Average wookiee, just invest the points in intellect and get it to 4 at chargen... Dropping Brawn down to 1 to raise Intellect I just don't understand personally, you're basically saying "my wookiee, from a RP perspective, based on my stats, is weaker than an Average Human, but uber-smart... Like the one of the Smartest beings in the Galaxy". To me personally, that doesn't make sense as you never find a wookiee that's weaker than an average human... They are still wookiee's after all, the ewok-sized super smart wookiee just 'doesn't fit', in the lore of Star Wars, if you will.

Obviously, this is all personal opinion; I believe in designing your character before you even look at the stats. If you say I want a wookiee mechanic, like Chewbacca, deal with the fact that he's a wookiee. Chewbacca was smart and helped Han out with a lot of mechanic things in the Falcon, but he still whooped people's asses wookiee style, with his wookiee strength. If you want to pick a Rodian, RP a Rodian, not a super Brawn Low Agility Rodian Marauder that's got the Strength of a Wookie, that you'd never see in Star Wars, just because you like the way Rodians look, but hate their stats. ONCE AGAIN this is my personal opinion! I'm not trying to incite flame wars here, I just am demonstrating why I choose to follow the RAW. I'm not saying anyone absolutely must follow the RAW.

Play your PC how you'd like in regard to a situation, no matter what your stats are and if a roll is required, RP the outcome. You shouldn't be pigeon-holed into a certain IQ bracket or Strength bracket because when the wookiee who has 4 brawn fails an athletics roll and the 2 brawn human succeeds, that pigeonholing doesn't make sense narratively. I know that this paragraph in particular is my opinion, but the CRB doesn't state anything about 1 brawn making a PC RP feeble, or 1 Intellect making PC RP dumb...

May I ask, aside from dice rolling, how you describe characters and their attributes? How do you differentiate between them when describing NPCs?

No, the CRB does not list IQ as a table or descriptive quality, but with only 6 tiers of attributes each one should have a meaningful difference. Otherwise, there really is no reason for them to exist.

I tend to agree with you about not wanting to allow lowered stats under species average. From a narrative point of view, they require justification where the average joe does not.

If there isn't Characteristic lowering, you really won't have to run into this. Everything begins the game with an Intellect of 2 (I believe, though Gand is showing 1 on my Beta GM Cheat sheet. I can't verify because I'm at work and I need my CRB). Therefore, nothing is really stupid, unless you want to make a Droid with one intellect (I think this was by design). At the same time, if base-line is two, I don't see a Characteristic of 1 being that much off from two, if anything, 1 would be 'slightly below average'. I mean, from what we see of Twi'leks, are they really noticeably weaker than humans? If I were to pit a Human against a Twi'lek in a boxing match, I'd bet on the Human, but I hardly doubt a Twi'lek is going to be so hampered by his 1 Brawn that he's going to have difficulty performing typical tasks. Doings 18 pullups, he's gonna fail that check, but lifting a box? He might do it slightly slower than a human.

From a roleplaying perspective, it's difficult. I get what you're saying for a physical description, but when a 3 Agility, 2 Ranged (light) guy can shoot as well as a 2 Agility, 3 Ranged (light) guy can, do I have to 'roleplay' my guy having less agility or less aptitude? I think that's being a little bit over the top.

For me, I think if you want a smarter than Average wookiee, just invest the points in intellect and get it to 4 at chargen... Dropping Brawn down to 1 to raise Intellect I just don't understand personally, you're basically saying "my wookiee, from a RP perspective, based on my stats, is weaker than an Average Human, but uber-smart... Like the one of the Smartest beings in the Galaxy". To me personally, that doesn't make sense as you never find a wookiee that's weaker than an average human... They are still wookiee's after all, the ewok-sized super smart wookiee just 'doesn't fit', in the lore of Star Wars, if you will.

Obviously, this is all personal opinion; I believe in designing your character before you even look at the stats. If you say I want a wookiee mechanic, like Chewbacca, deal with the fact that he's a wookiee. Chewbacca was smart and helped Han out with a lot of mechanic things in the Falcon, but he still whooped people's asses wookiee style, with his wookiee strength. If you want to pick a Rodian, RP a Rodian, not a super Brawn Low Agility Rodian Marauder that's got the Strength of a Wookie, that you'd never see in Star Wars, just because you like the way Rodians look, but hate their stats. ONCE AGAIN this is my personal opinion! I'm not trying to incite flame wars here, I just am demonstrating why I choose to follow the RAW. I'm not saying anyone absolutely must follow the RAW.

I just checked, Gands have a 2 Intellect.

I hope that you aren't getting frustrated with our conversation. I thought that it had been a very pleasant discourse even as we have been disagreeing on several points.

I have seen a few NPCs written with Characteristics that are below what a PC of a given species can start with (afb, I can try to give specific examples later if needed), so below average capacities certainly can occur, but by RAW such characters are unfit for use as PCs.

I hope that you aren't getting frustrated with our conversation. I thought that it had been a very pleasant discourse even as we have been disagreeing on several points.

No, absolutely not! I can't just see someone reading what I wrote and finding it necessary to try and disprove why the RAW makes sense, so I made sure to reiterate it was my opinion on why I stick to the RAW.

"At the same time, if base-line is two, I don't see a Characteristic of 1 being that much off from two, if anything, 1 would be 'slightly below average'. "

If you have a range of 6 with 2 as the average (50% or so of the population) 1 is going to have to represent the average of below average, which would definitely reserve a seat on the short bus for a PC with a 1 intellect for it to have any meaning at all.

an example of someone with int 1 and education 4 would be dustin hoffmans rainman, brilliant with quirky facts and mathematics, but mentally challenged.

an example of someone with int 0 is like ben stillers portrayal of jack in tropic thunder "you went full retard, never go full retard"

-jokes lol

The fact that no canon organic species starts with Int 1 is telling. In the USM, Defel, Gammoreans Klatooinians, Nikto, Talz, Togorians, and Whipid have Int 1: mostly primitive species, or species that are known to be mostly bullyboys, thugs, or soldiers.

Droids at Int 1 - perfectly justified as B1/B2 Battle Droids or thereabouts. Or even labor droids that would have had no need to be smarter.

That being said I'm uncomfortable if the guy with Int 1, Core Worlds 4 gets a better result than someone with Int 4, Core Worlds 1 and subsequently gets worse information because of his lower Int, as if the higher skill or even the pure result doesn't justify a certain level of info if your Int isn't higher. I'm even more uncomfortable telling a player "no you can't think to do that because your character is not that smart." To me that is very heavy-handed GMing, not encouraging roleplaying at all.

It's good there's not a pure planning stat, because a lot of planning could validly fall under Cunning, now just raw Intellect, and I am all for switching up the "usual" characteristic paired with a Skill for a different one as the situation demands.

I don't see any of this stuff even casually mentioned on the rules.

Because Intellect in this game is really book smarts. There is no Planning skill. For a good reason.

Also, telling players "your character can't think that" is both hard and not really a good idea.

Actually Intellect "...measures a character's intelligence, education, mental acuity, and ability to reason and rationalize." CRB pg 16.

Players need to roleplay their characters. This includes any and all attributes, otherwise the attributes are meaningless numbers on a page. Low attributes need to have some sort of justification, just like high ones. No attribute should be a nebulous number that only applies in rolling dice.

It does say that.

However, when you look at what Intellect is actually used for you see that its really book smarts. With Cunning as mostly street smarts.

There is a reason there isn't a Planning skill in the game.

its all subjective though....

if an int 1 core worlds 4 rolls 2 successes

and an int 4 core worlds 1 rolls 2 successes

then they most recall the same level of info, just in different ways.

the int 1 cw 4 could say, the bad peoples all have a perdy butterfly with green and blue, you like blue, and you like butterflies, you don't like the baddies, they always sell yucky sticks that make your tummy hurt.

the int 4 core worlds 1 says, you know that butterfly symbol is worn by the gang your after, they are known for narcotics especially death sticks.

This is one of the issues with the 1 to 6 attribute system with 2 as the average.

1- everything from slightly below average to terrible

2- human average

3- above average

4- great

5- amazing

6- unbelievably incredible

It doesn't leave any room for nuances of low skill.

And by not allowing 1s your not allowing players to be anything less than okay.

the int 1 cw 4 could say, the bad peoples all have a perdy butterfly with green and blue, you like blue, and you like butterflies, you don't like the baddies, they always sell yucky sticks that make your tummy hurt.

Cite where Int 1 makes you so stupid as to be barely functional in adult society.

the int 1 cw 4 could say, the bad peoples all have a perdy butterfly with green and blue, you like blue, and you like butterflies, you don't like the baddies, they always sell yucky sticks that make your tummy hurt.

Cite where Int 1 makes you so stupid as to be barely functional in adult society.

Indeed! On the planet A'muri'ka steps have been taken from elementary school onward to make sure adult society is based around the idea that a 'well below average' intellect is actually the 'average' intellect!

Just a joke folks...

Indeed! On the planet A'muri'ka steps have been taken from elementary school onward to make sure adult society is based around the idea that a 'well below average' intellect is actually the 'average' intellect!

Just a joke folks...

I'm a native to this planet, but I'm also a Star Wars fan. So when I read the planet name, I immediately saw it as a Chiss name and was trying to extrapolate the core name. I was like "Amurik. Well that's not an interesting name"

The issues I see here is, there are Sentients with 1 Int (from glance at the NPCs) and there are non-sentients with 1 Int. So, with this reasoning that 1 Int is something that is a massively defining characteristic of stupidity, I don't see something like a guard, not being able to Speak Galactic Basic. However, at the same time, they are bunched in with a Species, like Gamorrean, which has 1 int and can't speak Galactic Basic. Also, 1 int is used for the majority of beasts. The fact of the matter is, anything below two Intellect is considered 'below average'... That degree of below average obviously has an extremely high variance; I doubt the devs wanted PC's to have lower than 2 Int, or else they probably would've made average Int 3, to show below average and primitive Intellects.

I'll quote HappyDaze here:

...below average capacities certainly can occur, but by RAW such characters are unfit for use as PCs...

Because the 'Below Average' stat for NPCs is considered significantly different from PCs; let's put it this way, while a PC may have 2 across the board be considered 'Average', 1 Across the board would be considered 'Average' for the majority of most PCs. Basically, the PCs, being considered Hero characters are held to a higher standard than standard denizens of hte Galaxy... I know that's mentioned in the CRB somewhere. The problem with trying to dissect these stats, is running into the problem of taking things too literally - basically looking at them from a d20 perspective. Realistically, the characteristics in EotE are much more abstract than saying, your character's Int is at 1, therefore you are dumb.

Two school's of thought here: creating a PC, and having characteristics define your character. OR, character a PC and letting your roleplaying define your character and the Characteristics are purely meant for mechanics, with the results depicting your PC's capabilities. For me personally, I choose the latter; if a character's got more training than natural ability, I think it's weird locking him into roleplaying his character as being 'weaker' or 'less smart' than a PC that's got less training and more natural ability...

That being said I'm uncomfortable if the guy with Int 1, Core Worlds 4 gets a better result than someone with Int 4, Core Worlds 1 and subsequently gets worse information because of his lower Int, as if the higher skill or even the pure result doesn't justify a certain level of info if your Int isn't higher. I'm even more uncomfortable telling a player "no you can't think to do that because your character is not that smart." To me that is very heavy-handed GMing, not encouraging roleplaying at all.

While I respect your personal opinion, I have to disagree.

I am not suggesting that the results should be any less valid in your example. I would suggest that the diligence spent in learning so much about the topic (i.e. Skill Rating) should be emphasized during the narration, rather than the character's brilliance in deduction.

As to expecting characters to role-play all facets of their characters, well I think we won't agree to that. It isn't heavy handed to expect a player to self limit herself while playing a character that isn't as smart as she is. It is a sign of good role-playing, and understanding what makes the character tick. GMs sometimes need to remind players about their limits in order to keep verisimilitude in the game. It is a similar concept to pc versus character knowledge. You wouldn't consider that heavy handed would you?

Because the 'Below Average' stat for NPCs is considered significantly different from PCs; let's put it this way, while a PC may have 2 across the board be considered 'Average', 1 Across the board would be considered 'Average' for the majority of most PCs. Basically, the PCs, being considered Hero characters are held to a higher standard than standard denizens of hte Galaxy... I know that's mentioned in the CRB somewhere. The problem with trying to dissect these stats, is running into the problem of taking things too literally - basically looking at them from a d20 perspective. Realistically, the characteristics in EotE are much more abstract than saying, your character's Int is at 1, therefore you are dumb.

Two school's of thought here: creating a PC, and having characteristics define your character. OR, character a PC and letting your roleplaying define your character and the Characteristics are purely meant for mechanics, with the results depicting your PC's capabilities. For me personally, I choose the latter; if a character's got more training than natural ability, I think it's weird locking him into roleplaying his character as being 'weaker' or 'less smart' than a PC that's got less training and more natural ability...

I find it humorous that we disagree on this point. We are both very narrative gamers I suspect. Let me try another way of explaining it. Have you ever played core FATE? I don't think that anyone would ever call it a crunchy system but they have a tiered set of skills 0 through 5. Attributes are built into skills and aspects. Unless a character has a skill, they will default at a 0 level. In this game they are considered mediocre at it. They use an identical descriptive term for each level of success and skill.

-1 Poor

0 Mediocre

1 Average

2 Fair

3 Good

4 Great

5 Superb

etc...

I suppose that I do analyze games for reason and themes more than I should, but then again I also enjoy creating them. I love more narrative games, but I like having that balance of clear and understandable terminology and reason. It is too easy in a narrative game to have a disagreement on what something means, such as what we are having, if there isn't enough descriptive fluff to justify the mechanics.

You are correct though, this pandora's box only opens if you allow PCs to take attributes below racial averages.