Strength	Constitution	Dexterity	Intelligence	Wisdom
Charisma	-	-	-	Conclusion
Dragon 107	-	-	-	Dragon

Six personal characteristics are given to
each character in the AD&D® game:
strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity,
constitution, and charisma. Of these,
strength is the most physically obvious
attribute. Strength is the basic muscular
ability to lift objects, to throw, to run,
jump, swim, and to affect the universe
directly. The pen may be mightier than the
sword, but the pen (intelligence) does its
work indirectly. The sword (strength) is
direct and physical. Constitution is also
physical, but less energetically so: if
strength is the sword, then constitution
must be the suit of personal armor. Dexterity
is the skill to use the bodily weapons,
and intelligence is the skill to use them
effectively. Wisdom represents the skill to
use them only when they are needed (and to
know what that need might be), and charisma
is the diplomacy to find ways other
than weaponry to settle matters. This article

deals with the six characteristics in this
order, progressing from the most material to
the least. More is known about strength
than is about charisma, just as more is
known about engineering than about psychology.
The study of each is inherently
interesting.
For the analysis of the physical characteristics
? strength, constitution, and dexterity
? I?ve relied on a volume about sports
medicine.

(The Athlete's Guide to Sports Medicine by Ellington Darden, Ph.D.;
1981: Contemporary Books, Chicago.)

More has been published about sports
medicine than about the medical aspects of
swordfighting, even though the two pastimes
are not totally dissimilar.

Strength
The muscles of the human body are
composed of bundles of muscle fibers, giving
muscles their familiar ?ropy? look. The

fibers of the voluntary muscles can contract
and relax, pulling an arm or leg into specific
position. Muscles do not, in general
push, but nearly always pull, and this tension
works to draw the limbs into bent or
straightened positions. The muscles are
usually paired: while one muscle works to
bend a knee, for example, its partner relaxes.
When the knee is to be straightened,
another muscle (or set of muscles) pulls
along the outside of the knee to straighten
it, while the bending muscles relax. The
rigid bones of the body provide the levers
upon which the muscles act. Ligaments and
tendons connect the muscles to the bones,
anchoring them firmly yet flexibly.
The result of the flexing and relaxing of
the voluntary muscles is the voluntary
action of a healthy body: a run, a leap, a
swing, and a splash. A person?s strength is a
measure of his or her muscular power, and
is reflected in speed, lifting ability, throwing
ability, and jumping range. Strength is also
partially related to a person?s capacity to
absorb damage or resist pain, and to his
endurance.

Women are distinctly less strong than
men, and the reasons for this are partly
biological and partly sociological. In virtually
no part of history before the present
were women encouraged to exercise. A
whole collection of myths arose to suggest
that exercise was bad for women, and that
their delicate bodies weren?t equipped to
handle the rigors of a developed physique.
Beyond these easily-debunked tales lies the
biological fact that women do not produce
some of the chemical hormones that cause
the huge bulging muscles seen on bodybuilding
men. But muscle mass is not the
same thing as strength; women who exercise
regularly can build up substantial strength.
World records for hurdle races, for example,
indicate that the difference between a highly
conditioned male runner and an equally
well-conditioned female runner is about ten
per cent of the race time. If a man can run
a race in 100 seconds, a woman can probably
run it in 110 seconds. The same relation
is true in swimming and throwing events.
There is a tremendous variation in people,
from the very fittest to the very flabbiest:
the difference between the average woman
and the average man in strength is far less
than the difference between the strongest and
the weakest of either sex.
The differences between men and women
nearly vanishes when humans are compared
to some of the animals. Even small monkeys
are stronger than large people. A gorilla,

although not much larger than a human, is
massively more strong, being able to outfight
the human by a handy four-to-one
ratio. Even a small housecat can put up a
struggle against a human (even discounting
the use of the cat?s claws and teeth), although
the ratio of the weights of a man and
a cat is close to twenty to one. Why is it that
animals are stronger, per pound of muscle,
than humans are?
There are two answers to this. Humans
are largely neotenous, which is to say that
we carry youthful or infantile features of
our bodies into adulthood. Adult humans
still have childlike bodies, when compared
to other animals. We lack most of our body
hair, we have high foreheads and large eyes,
we have alert, adaptive, and playful minds,
and we have underdeveloped muscles. Since
all of the other characteristics listed are
advantageous, the small disadvantage of our
relative weakness is compensated for. The
other answer to animals? greater strength is,
that animals use all of their strength, all at
once, when fighting or struggling, whereas
humans don?t have many opportunities to
need to use the full resources of their
bodies. (This is, of course, fortunate for us.)
When a cat, dog, or ape attacks, the attack
is all-out, holding nothing is reserve. Humans
favor a more tentative attack, prodding
and jabbing, looking for weaknesses.

When a human undertakes exercises to
enhance his or her strength, the regimen
should be thorough and careful. The risks
from over-exercising can be worse than the
risks of being out of shape. Muscles are
built up by being injured ? very, very
slightly! ? and then healing, and this healing
requires forty-eight to seventy-two
hours. Thus a person exercising to increase
strength should exercise hard, pushing until
feeling tired and sore; but no farther, and
then resting for a day. It is true, as the
advertisement says, that if there?s no pain,
there?s no gain. But care must be taken not
to take the pain too far. If ten push-ups
causes sore arms, then twelve push-ups is a
good daily score, increasing over time.
Fifteen, however, would be too many. If a
runner is out of breath after jogging for ten
minutes, he should consider jogging on for
another minute or two, and the pain in the
legs is an indication of future musclebuilding.
Going on for another ten minutes,
however, would be excessive. People who
are exercising to increase their strength will
notice that it can be easily increased, and
they will learn to tell the difference between
being tired and being hurt. The former is
necessary, the latter to be avoided.
Alas for the would-be bodybuilder in
AD&D gaming, the number rolled on the
characteristics dice for strength, like that
rolled for the other characteristics, is fixed
once rolled. Some referees, however, might
allow characters who undergo training to
increase strength and constitution, only, one
or maybe two points through training. If so,
then if the training is discontinued, for any
reason, the characteristics will drop to their
normal (rolled) values.

Constitution
A person?s constitution is a measure of
his or her overall health, endurance, and
vigor. Someone with a high constitution will
have fewer colds and headaches, and will
probably live to an older age. Most diseases
are deterred by a good constitution, although
many ? including the highly virulent
viruses, cancer, and nervous system
disorders ? are not. The three most obvious
assets of a good constitution are a
strong heart, healthy lungs, and a good
muscle tone. The heart is the body?s primary
means of limiting people?s activity:
when the heart is too tired to continue, the
person gets tired and will generally be unable
to continue. Although when we cannot
continue running or climbing we usually
say that we?re out of breath, the fact is that
the heart has simply stepped its demands for
oxygen so far up that the lungs cannot
supply it and the muscles. The body is
exhausted, and the runner or climber can
only sit and wait. This is a safety mechanism.
One sports doctor has said that it is
impossible to overstrain the heart, since the
heart controls the amount of strain it will
allow the body to put upon it. Through
diligent hard work, it is probably possible
for an athlete to damage his or her heart by
jogging on and refusing to heed the body?s
danger signals. This, however, is something
no athlete would choose to do.
When muscles are exerted, they begin to

build up fatigue poisons, mostly lactic acid,
in their tissues. Probably everyone is familiar
with having stiff, sore muscles after a
workout; this is because the fatigue poisons
require time to be metabolized. This pain
and stiffness is also a sign that the muscles
have been stressed, that they are healing,
and that the exercise is having its intended
effect. Exercises to build up stamina and
endurance are different from exercises to
build up strength, however. lb build up
strength, exercise periods should be short
and periodic: twenty push-ups followed by a
short break, then repeat. To build up constitution,
exercise should be continuous, but
at a lower level of activity. Long walks, or
jogging, are ideal for building up constitution.
The important thing is to have the
heart beating at a steady, high rate, and the
blood flowing through the major veins and
arteries.

Here; too, there is a sex difference.
Women tend to have better constitution
than men, if all other factors are equal. This
is not something that can be observed in the
general population, for it is still true that
young girls do not learn to exercise to the
degree that young boys do. In America,
women and men are approximately equal in
constitution, but the natural advantage is
on the side of the women.

Dexterity
The AD&D game uses dexterity as an
overall characteristic, embracing manual
dexterity, coordination, and agility. But all
of these are quite different. Manual dexterity
is the deftness of the wrists and hands,
and shows up in such activities as throwing
darts, painting, sewing, and of course typing.
By correlating messages from the eyes
and hands, people can become capable of
amazing feats of dexterity. The key is
endless hours of repetitious practice. With
practice, nearly anyone can become blindly
adept at video games, for example, or at
typing, sewing, or playing the guitar. The
motions need to be learned through repetition,
until it can almost be said that the
fingers know the correct moves better than
the mind does. The only limits to manual
dexterity are the time spent in practice, and
any physical or neurological limitations of
an individual?s physique. If a person?s body
is healthy and he is not suffering from any
nervous system disorders, then even if he is
the clumsiest and most awkward of persons,
he can train his dexterity upward.
Overall physical coordination is slightly
different. It is a measure of the quickness of
the body?s reflexes, and of the overall ability
to act smoothly. Coordination comes into
play when shooting a basketball, swinging
at a pitched baseball, kicking at a planted
football, or juggling.
Researchers in sports medicine have
discovered that the concept of ?general
skills? such as overall dexterity or overall

coordination tend to break down into specific
skills. In fact, very slight variations in
the skill learned can have disastrous effects
upon the application of the skill. If a tennis
player switches to an unfamiliar racket, his
or her overall playing ability will initially
deteriorate. Ultimately, it seems that people
don?t have one sort of coordination; but
have several coordinations relative to different
tasks. We know that being good at
typing gives no guarantee of being good at
playing the piano, but it might be surprising
to know that playing the piano well is
no guarantee of being able to play the harpsichord
well, since some of the muscle interplay
is slightly different. For many years it
was thought that teaching students to play
tennis would carry a benefit over into driving
a car. The fact is that coordination
breaks down into skill-related categories
which are very different.
Agility is the overall flexibility and quickness
of the body. One who is highly agile
might be a better climber, swimmer, runner,
and be better at dodging. The ability to
walk along the balance beam is an agility
skill. Again, this breaks down into subcategories,
and there are many different
agilities inherent in one person. Even the
sense of balance is not a general skill: one
who is good at walking a balance beam with
his feet lengthwise has no assurance of being
good at walking along it with his feet held
crosswise. There is very little common skill

in balancing. The same is true for running;
only a few of the skills involved in running
carry over from one type of run to another,
even when both runs are of the same general
distance and duration.
Skills are improved by practice. Dexterity,
coordination, and agility can all be
learned. One aspect of skills training is
called skill transference, and transference
comes in three varieties: positive, negative,
and indifferent transfer. If a fencer learns to
fence with an epee, this skill has virtually
nothing to do with learning to fence with a
saber; the skill transfer is indifferent. Someone
learning to perform a skill needs to
practice with that skill, in precise detail,
before the practice will have a beneficial
effect. Playing tennis against a backboard
has only an indifferent transfer of skill
toward playing tennis against an opponent.
Negative transfer occurs when two skills are
close to one another, but are not identical.
Someone who learns to shoot a thirty-pound
bow will be extremely frustrated by a thirtyone-
pound bow. Practice with a mace wills
not give skill in the use of a sword, and
practice with one sword will not guarantee
skill in the use of another sword. One must
practice the skills that are to be learned.

Intelligence

Anyone familiar with the ongoing debate
about I.Q. tests will know that the nature of
intelligence is problematic. In the nineteenth
century, scientists developed the
notion that intelligence was related to brain
size, and rigorous measurements were made
of the volume of the braincases of skull
specimens. In the mid-twentieth century,
the notion of a written intelligence test was
put forward, and received enthusiastically
by the scientific community. Flaws became
immediately obvious. To begin with, how
can an intelligence test in the form of a
paper-and-pencil quiz measure the intelligence
of someone who cannot read? According
to most of the theorists in the 1930s
and 1940s, intelligence was an innate, fixed
thing, inherent in the individual. In the
1950s and 1960s, a question arose about the
cultural bias of the most common tests.
Questions could be seen to be reflective of
the ethics and values of white, middle-class,
suburban men (by no coincidence, the very
group of people who had the most influence
in the design of the tests). Finally, the overreaching
question of the innateness of intelligence
arose: can intelligence be learned, or
is it something with which a child is born?
The ?nature versus nurture? issue is a
heated one to this day. For a more detailed
examination of the issue of I.Q. tests than
can be presented here, one book in particular,

The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen
Jay Could (W.W. Norton and Company,
New York: 1981) is highly recommended.

Some common-sense observations are still
possible. Intelligence can depend on such
factors as health, the proper amount of
sleep, mental health, and surroundings.
Consider someone taking an I.Q. test in a
crowded room full of noisy people, while

suffering
from a cold, while having gotten
only three hours of sleep in the past fortyeight
hours, and while extremely worried
about the results of the test. One of the
many contributing factors to performance
on an I.Q. test is confidence. If the subject
feels confident and hopeful, he will do better
on the test. If the subject feels desperate,
worried, hopeless, or merely anxious about
the test, the results will not be as good. This
is known as the ?self-fulfilling prophecy,?
and suggests that a positive attitude may be
a strong part of appearing intelligent.

INT, in the real, uncontrolled world,
is largely a matter of appearance. We
might say that a man is "sharp as a whip",
or "very bright" if he is the first to notice
an error, the quickest to add up a column of figures,
or the one who comes up with the most clever wisecrack.
People are seen to be intelligent when they are observant,
methodical, or articulate.

Of these, being observant is perhaps the <compare to: Perception>
most readily learnable habit. People who
see what is actually right before their eyes
are in the minority. We fail to notice signs
and we tend to overlook even the most
obvious things, especially when we?re look-

for them. The joke about the person
failing to find his glasses because they are
pushed up on his forehead is a true one, as I
can vouch personally. So, quickly: What is
the license plate number of your family car?
What time of day does the daily newspaper
arrive? How often do you hear the songs of
birds or chirping crickets where you live?
Being observant is not simply a matter of
counting how many stairs there are in a
given staircase. I?m a compulsive stepcounter,
and yet I couldn?t tell you how
many trees there are in my front yard.

Being observant is, instead, a matter of
seeing the important things, at the time
they're important. Clearly an observant
person will be a better driver, and a poor
driver will be seen as a stupid driver, Seeing,
registering, and cataloging the items in
your field of vision is one important step
toward appearing intelligent.

Clear thinking is another. We all rationalize,
every day of our lives. An intelligent
person will stop, every now and then, and
review his assumptions about the way the
world works. Intelligence means reasoning
from cause to effect, or from effect to cause,
along logical paths. It is generally considered

stupidity to try to fit the facts to your
prejudices. For example, despite the thousands
of studies showing that seat-belts in
cars save lives, we still hear people saying,
over and over, "I'd rather be thrown clear
of a collision than crushed in it." The stupidity
of this idea is most evident when it is
examined closely. The people who say this
are doing no reasoning, and indeed are not
thinking the matter through from facts to
conclusions. Instead, they are trying to
justify their own unwillingness to fasten
their seat-belts. Intelligence is partly a
measure of the ability to react to the facts,
and to act in accordance with them. An
intelligent person will take the extra moment
to buckle up, knowing that it increases
his chances of surviving.

Intelligence can also be examined from
the point of view of learned tasks, or from
visual perception. The human brain is
divided into two hemispheres, each of which
controls different aspects of thought. The
left brain, in most people, governs verbal
reasoning, language skills, and logic. The
right brain governs such things as the perception
of visual relationships, music, and
the appreciation of artistic beauty. It has
been determined that most people are
stronger in one hemisphere of their brains
than in the other; thus, we find people who
are highly adept at language skills, while
others are skilled at art and music. In these
cases, although someone might have a head
start in one of these areas, the specialization
is more a matter of an advantage than a
disadvantage. For a left-brain-dominant
person to learn right-brain skills will be
more difficult, but it can be done. Practice,
as always, is the primary key to learning
any new skill.

Wisdom
Wisdom is perhaps the characteristic least
susceptible to improvement. Wisdom, it
would seem, is innate, a fundamental part
of an individual. It is different from intelligence:
you can have intelligent fools, as well
as people who are wise, yet ignorant. Wisdom
would seem to be related to strength of
willpower, to a degree. People can increase
their strength, but only if they have the
wisdom to exercise regularly. It is horribly
easy to skip one day of exercises, on any
excuse. It is easy for a student to skip a day
of class, for an employee to skip a day of
work, and for nearly anyone to delay things
that are necessary. Wisdom is the ability to
say, ?Well, it?s got to be done, so I might as
well do it today.? Wisdom is the subject of
advice of many popular aphorisms: ?Never
put off till tomorrow what you could do
today.? ?The more haste, the less speed.?
?Never be penny-wise and pound-foolish.?
?He who hesitates is lost.?
One?s intelligence can help him understand
these items of advice, but only one?s
wisdom can allow him to follow them at the
correct time. For example, it is said both
that ?He who hesitates is lost,? and ?Look
before you leap.? How does one choose?
When going swimming in a new creek, it is
far better to look at the depth and temperature
of the water before leaping in. When a
runaway garbage truck has lost its brakes
and is bearing down on you, hesitating
might be disastrous.

Wisdom, ultimately, can only be learned
from experience. There are no short cuts to
wisdom, other than to live an interesting
life. I strongly recommend that everyone go
out and make their mistakes, utter their
blunders, goof up, foul up, and choke up,
using intelligence as much as possible, in
order to learn wisdom. Errors teach us
more about life than successes do: an unfortunate,
but true, rule of life.

Adults are invariably more wise than
children, and wisdom is highly correlated
with age. Walt Kelly once said, in his Pogo
comic strip, that being adult is largely a
matter of looking back and not counting
your mistakes. The mistakes, then, will
have taught you their lessons.

Charisma
?Cleanliness is next to godliness.? With
that simple truth, some advertising and
soap companies have tried to put forward
the theory that charisma follows from using
the right mouthwash, detergent, shampoo,
and deodorant. The notion has some basis

in truth -- we are sometimes judged by our
sweat -- but far more often, charisma and
popularity are measures of voice and stance.
Charisma can be studied in the ways of
public speaking. If you can speak to an
audience and hold their attention, then you
have substantial charisma. One study
(which I am unable to cite properly) suggested
that when an audience listens to a
speaker, they judge him according to the
following formula: 80% by his tone of
voice, 15% by his posture, his gestures, and
his expression, and 5% by the actual content
of the words. If this is true (and I,
personally, have a few doubts about the
percentages listed), then charisma would
seem to be a matter of being charismatic,
or, less paradoxically, of being smooth,
suave, positive, persuasive, gentle, and
sincere.
The typical series of conflicting advice
applies: speak up, but not too loudly. Be
firm, but not too aggressive. Use some
humor, but don?t do a stand-up-comedian?s
routine. Maintain eye contact, but don?t
glare. Introduce pauses into your speech,
but never allow dead time to build up into a
long silence. One could go quietly insane
trying to follow all of these items of advice,
when, in fact, speaking before an audience
must be a natural, comfortable thing to do.

One young woman I know exemplifies
another aspect of charisma: leadership. She
has the ability to spearhead a group through
the entire duration of a lengthy, difficult
project. She can run a science fiction convention,
with all of the hassle and infighting
that that entails. I, frankly, haven?t any real
idea of how she does this. I couldn?t do it.
She has the knack of soothing the ruffled
tempers and easing the injured egos of all of
the people involved. When disputes flare up
? and they always do ? she can arbitrate,
finding the optimum solution that leaves
everyone satisfied, if not happy. Does she
ever lose her own temper? Certainly, yet
never in such a way as to alienate the people
she leads. Does she ever stumble, committing
goof-ups or gaffes? Yes, of course. She
also recovers from them. She is about to put
on her eighth semi-annual small convention,
and has enlisted the enthusiastic support
of an entire crew of volunteers. I?ll be
in there helping, and not quite knowing
why. A good leader brings out quality and
effort from a group, often more than they
know they have. For this reason, a group of
skilled and enthusiastic people (or even
hangers-on and detail chiselers like myself)
follow such a leader, respecting her for the
final success of the job.

Since not one person in a hundred is such
a leader, the rest of us must be satisfied with
lesser tasks of charisma. How many enemies
do you have? When was the last time
you made a peace overture to someone you
don?t like? How often do you participate in
spreading gossip? How often do you find
yourself shouting, swearing, or using rude
gestures?
Charisma, to a degree, can be improved
simply by being nice. Nice guys do not

necessarily finish last, but they always finish
loved. Pride and envy are the primary sins
against charisma.

Conclusion
The six characteristics in AD&D gaming
have relevance to the real world, as much as
to role-playing games. The characteristics
can be improved, just as people can improve
themselves. The characteristics do not
define a person, any more than race, religion,
income, or shoe size do, although the
characteristics, like all other attributes, will
help to advance or to retard a person?s
enjoyment of life. Of all of these, the ones
that are least material ? charisma, wisdom,
and intelligence ? are the ones that are the
most difficult to improve, and the ones that
have the most effect on the quality of life.
Life is not fair. Some people are brilliant,
wise, and popular, while others of us. must
grind our teeth and wonder where we must
have been when the luck was being handed
out. A better closing line could not be found
than the immortal quote from the musical
Pippin: ?It?s smarter to be lucky than it?s
lucky to be smart.?


OUT ON A LIMB

‘Sixth sense’


Dear Editor:
Back in DRAGON #50 there was a letter <link>
suggesting that DMs exchange hints through
your magazine. Here’s my little addition:
Many times in fantasy books one reads
about the hero having a sixth sense. (“Jaxen
sensed something behind him. He whirled
about...”) Here is a flexible system for giving
adventurers a sixth sense. When the DM feels
that the character in question has a chance to
use his “adventurer’s sense,” he secretly rolls
to see if that character saves vs. breath weapon.
If the save is made, the character senses
something. Modifiers: Dwarves and gnomes
get -1 in woods, +1 underground; elves get -1
underground, +1 in woods; rangers and druids
get -1 underground, +1 outdoors; thieves get
+1 when alone; magic-users get +1 when magic
is nearby; clerics get +1 when the thing that
may be sensed is of an opposing alignment.


Chris Meyer
Marigot, Dominica, West Indies
(Dragon #63)