Every time I have seen this method used to try and teach people the game I just see their eyes glaze over, so I'm genuinely curious to hear anyone's stories where they've had success in using it, either with somebody else or for yourself. So please leave a comment if you have any experiences where this has worked!
Back at the end of 3rd edition (so, yes - this was being used at D&D tables _well_ before 5th edition), someone brought up the fruit/salad analogy at a table I was playing at, and someone else pointed out that 'knowing not to put tomato in fruit salad' would be a knowledge or craft skill check (per 3rd edition rules, anyway), and both of those are governed by INT. This led to a long discussion about which skills and saves were actually governed by each mental attribute, and that helped a lot with understanding what the conceptual differences were _supposed_ to be.
You did a pretty good job at making the video somewhat funny. Is it petty ? To some extent yes. Does the rant make sense though ? Yes. Also : while teaching do differ from person to person for highest effectiveness it is very unlikely that a throw away line that does not even scratch the surface of a concept could even start to qualify as "teaching" Have a good day.
I think this is doubly so because of how in real life they're very much synonyms. A lot of synonyms aren't perfect one to one fits, but have a general overlap that let's us use them in similar ways when communicating. When you try and use real language as labels for fully separate things in gaming, though, you have a big issue when they get conflated.
@@ThomasFitch Honest question that I have not looked into at all: has anyone done the work to figure out if just straight merging them works in 5e? Or is it OP somehow or something?
@@blahthebiste7924Pathfinder 2e has only 3 types of saving throws. So you could merge them in 5e but that would still unbalance the game because what Wisdom does mechanically is different to Intelligence
Two points (one short, the other... very not short): 1. A use for the tomato "system" is as something of a mnemonic device, as much as it's kind of a stretch to try and fit everything to the tomato and doesn't actually explain the ability scores well, it's memorable and stands out in people's minds. There are probably still better ways to reach that same goal, but it is at least A use. 2. For quite a few reasons, Wis, and especially Cha, confuse a lot of players; particularly in how and why they affect actual game mechanics the way they do, and most attempts to figure out plausible reasons for the odd-er stuff make one major oversight; Wis and Cha don't actually make sense for a lot of their intended uses, but they USED to, because of world building. You see, Wisdom is not just intuition and being attuned to the world around you; it's also your spiritual awareness and understanding, as well as your strength of character and willpower. There's a reason that most divine spell casting is Wisdom; because hearing and interpreting the will and words of the gods, sensing the flow of destiny, or the vibes of nature; those are all Wisdom traits. Being in tune with this things and essentially having the spiritual 'clout' to call upon forces mightier than you is how Wisdom casters fundamentally work. In addition, don't forget that prior to 5e (and still in PF), the only mental-stat save was "Will" (which is Wisdom-based) which was used to resist the influence of magic as an abstract or controlling force, rather than contending with the effects it produced. Non-caster classes can still re-enforce this version of Wisdom; with the most obvious being Monks (spiritual, meditative, in tune with and one with the world and themselves, in emotional control and morally incorruptible and unshakable in faith or by fear? Yup); but also frequently Barbarians (don't often care about it, but still might come from tribal and pagan cultures that view the world as intensely spiritual; and willpower is an obvious one), and others like Pathfinder's Gunslingers (one main mechanic is called "grit" and represents basically an immovable toughness and stoicism that lets the pull off amazing feats under pressure that would break anyone else). If you really want to understand how Wisdom worked in D&D before many of the details were lost in the modern streamlining, read the Lord of the Rings. LotR (books mostly, this stuff is drastically changed in the movies) has a primarily Wisdom-based magic system; it's very much about tying strength of character to the strength of the magic; look at how Faramir vs Boromir handle the temptation of the Ring (Wisdom/Will save representing 'character' as the key to resisting charms and enchantments), or when Aragorn safely deals with the dead army or Frodo (a couple times) invokes an legendary Elvish name to access power or drive away evil (attunement to and harnessing of the Spiritual), or compare how Denathor vs Aragorn fair when using the Palantir (Denathor, who is mentioned to be intellectually on par with the likes of Aragorn and Gandalf, is swayed by despair from Sauron's influence through it; while Aragorn actually manages to not only resist Sauron's temptations and scrying, but actually wrests control of the Palantir away from him), or how in the 'House of Healing' section of Return of the King, it's demonstrated how Aragorn is able to heal not just physical but magical and spiritual maladies through his own strength of character (LotR is basically why Rangers are the way they are, including their Wisdom-based magic stuff). Similarly, you can also look at Star Wars. Jedi in general, are a Wisdom-based class, and Obi-wan, Yoda, and Qui-Gon demonstrate this probably best. They specifically all do this thing where they just sense things, their greatest power comes from listening to what the Force is saying to them and to essentially speaking back to it; and this is a Wisdom thing in D&D. Charisma, on the other hand, in addition to the standard social stuff; is also tied to magic in certain ways; as Charisma is mostly about pure, natural, innate talent; but it's also the ability to harness magic itself efficiently by gut instinct. Think about Bards as casters; they don't need to actually know the physics of how their spells affect the world, they don't need to align themselves with a deity or abstract living force to call upon it's aid; they just have to be talented, because if you're talented enough, the magic just kind of... happens for you. Sometimes it's not about external talents and skills like Bards use, sometimes it's more about the innate power, but still run by instinct and a sense of expressing that power; this is how Sorcerers work, they are just born special and Charisma represents how the act of harnessing and expressing your own specialness is inherently tied to how magic works (it's also worth noting that most monsters, by stats, use Cha as the default to determine their magical effects; and at least in PF, undead actually use Cha for their HP instead of Con; which fits with the idea of power+desire being enough to literally make the dead walk). While Sorcerers are born great and Bards achieve greatness; others, like Paladins and Warlocks, have that 'greatness' thrust upon them; they get their powers from some powerful, otherworldly force like Clerics do, but where Clerics use their Wisdom to connect to that force and call on it to act on their behalf, these classes use their Charisma, their innate talents and ability to utilize what was given to them to wield those powers much more directly themselves. One of the other things that ties into that idea is how in older editions (and, again, PF) there was a skill called 'Use Magic Device' that was used to activate wands and scrolls for spells you couldn't cast yourself, this was a Cha skill in the same way as Diplomacy and Bluff (Persuasion and Deception in 5e); and in the early playtests for PF2e, they were playing around with the idea of giving characters limited use of magic items based on "resonance" which was in turn, based on Charisma, which taps into the same idea; as does their more recent introduction of the Thaumaturge class (which is super awesome by the way), which is usually a monster-hunting type who uses trinkets and items and artifacts to achieve magical effects. Int accomplishes things by thinking them through and solving them logically; Wis accomplishes things by meditating on them and learning to understand and call upon the connections between all things; Cha accomplishes things by drawing on the Shia Labouf Meme and "JUST... DO(ing) IT!". Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Qui-Gon may listen to the will of the Force and take directions and lessons from it, they might learn to be one with it so that their desires are its desires, which is how they get it to do things; but Anakin is a Charisma-based Force user. He's just innately, by nature, so much more naturally talented and powerful than everyone else, he does stuff with the Force by just flexing and making it do what he wants; the Force just likes him and flocks to him and does his bidding because he's just so special. Anyways; in general, that's how I've managed to understand them in a way that makes sense of and with most of the mechanics; it's not always 100% consistent (especially since I think lots of designers even working at the companies that make these games don't quite understand it all), but a lot of that comes from the original intent and ideas kind of being lost over time (especially in the move to 5e).
so this tomato explanation is actually from an old text based rpg called arctic mud, in the game people didnt actually get to know their ability scores until doing something special at a high level, so they figured out how to calculate their scores by doing different things with tomatoes. for example, they would calculate dexterity by seeing how many tomatoes they could fit into their inventory.
This is fascinating! For anyone curious, Arctic MUD is still playable to this day. It's been going on since 1992. It's "loosely based on TSR's Dragonlance novels," and seems inspired by D&D, using the exact same ability scores. I can't find any direct proof the tomato explanation is from this community yet, but there isn't a ton of information that's easily accessible, it seems. This is definitely the kind of story I could easily see coming out of this sort of game, though. Super cool. Thanks so much for that!
I've used a modified version of it with more specificity using each ability: Athletics is lifting a barrel of tomatoes, Acrobatics is doing a flip over a barrel of tomatoes, sleight of hand is taking the keys off the tomato farmer's belt, stealth is sneaking into the tomato farmer's back room, arcana is knowing that the materials in the back room are for a tomato god summoning ritual, history is knowing that there was once a tomato based society in this region, nature is knowing that tomatoes are out of season and its weird they're still ripe, religion is knowing the god of tomatoes is a vengeful god, animal handling is keeping the tomato farmer's dog quiet while you investigate, insight is knowing the dog is hurt from its body language, medicine is bandaging the dog's paw, perception is spotting the farmer running out of his house behind you, survival is following his tracks, deception is convincing him you just wanna talk, intimidation is threating him to stop the ritual with violence, performance is juggling tomatoes to calm him down, persuasion is convincing him to still give you a job. It has a lot of the same pitfalls, notably the length of it, but i find it fun and make sure to point them in the direction of the PHB anyway
for skills, it kind of makes sense, because those are intentionally closer to a single dimension. It's still kind of awkward because it's a big info dump, but if it helps it helps.
I do truly sympathize with the desire to have a fun, quippy way to explain the scores. For a lot of people D&D is just a social game, and they usually respond to being asked to read rules text like I'm asking them to pull off a hangnail. Honestly I think the only effect of the tomato method is making people _feel_ like they get it, which gets them over a hurdle so they can actually play the game. It's much easier to get them to go back and read the rulebook after that (or more likely, I give them a more thorough explanation later).
Dude, I know so many people like that. And, ya know, it's fair. I don't want my friends to feel like I'm giving them homework when I ask them to play a new game with me, and if ttrpgs are a fully new thing to somebody, rule books can feel just as dense and cryptic as a 500 page calc textbook.
Can confirm that the tomato analogy has been floating around since at least 3.0. I seem to recall it being around in the 90's as well, but I am less certain of that memory. I want to say that I first read it in middle school, in a copy of dragon magazine. I am an old goblin.
@@ThomasFitch I think the important context is that I first encountered the analogy as a joke. It was always a joke and was never intended for use as a serious teaching tool. I think this phenomenon has a lot to say about the totalizing effects of online meme-culture and its fundamental incompatibility with rules learning in the context of ttrpg’s. I get the feeling that a lot of people approach the rules of D&D, specifically, with an online-osmosis style of pedagogy. My perception of this is likely due to the popularity of the game, as the game has always had some players who weren’t really interested in reading the rules, and I suspect that many of them would have been epic meme-lords and shit-posters given the opportunity. I say this without judgement. The dungeon master’s road is lonely, and not everyone wants a hobby that consists of 80% reading alone and 20% wishing that others would also do some of the reading. I mean, jesus, I compiled a list of important page numbers, arranged them by content and relevance, and wrote them out by hand on 3x5 index cards that you players could all use them as book marks. What more do you want from me? This makes it sound like I might hate Dungeons and Dragons. I do. But, I love it, too. And, furthermore, I love it with a depth and passion that only someone who hates it can. We were talking about tomatoes, I think. I would definitely go combing through old back-issues of Dragon Magazine, but all of mine are in storage, atm. Happy Hunting
@@GoblinWife I'm an older goblin and I remember seeing a version of this online in the late 80s/early 90s. It was originally just a joke reference to the Miles Kington quote swapping the word "Intelligence" for the word "Knowledge" - most likely in someone's Usenet signature. Someone saw it and asked "Isn't a tomato-based fruit salad basically salsa?" which got the reply "Hey everyone! I found the bard!"
If your game is set in literal historical medieval Europe a tomato is more anachronistic than a gun, if your game is _not_ set in the literal historical Earth continent of medieval Europe then there's no reason the tomato seller in the market shouldn't be strapped.
I feel like anybody who's that obsessed with historical accuracy would be playing another system/simply LARPing. Hard to agree with keeping tomatoes out of the game when squid people and floating blue hands are just things that exist.
Changing which crops are native to which continents is an incredibly straightforward piece of worldbuilding to do. Of course there are knock-on effects but for something like the tomato(as opposed to like maize or cattle) those will be pretty minor.
I will point out that in earlier editions, and the tomatoes an old joke, an alternative system for setting dcs really was "Every character with a Str above 14 can do this task. No character with a strength below 14 can do this task." Which was part of the utility of bumping an even ability score to be odd: your modifier stayed the same, but your static checks increased.
I think the biggest problem with trying to teach TTRPGs to new players is that so many videos or well-meaning GMs rely on the weirdest, most abstract and comical ways to teach everything. It leads to the prevailing misconception that TTRPGs aren't proper games with rules and mechanics, because a lot of new players expect them to just be 'a vibe' or improv or something. When I was teaching my friends how to play Pathfinder, when the question of the six attributes came up, I described them every skill in the game and how they worked. It took a bit (about 30m), but I think it gave a decently comprehensive idea on the variety of ways you can use every stat and skill.
Pretty sure the int/wis part of the tomato thing was the original quote. Then somebody on tumblr or smthn expanded, which is why every line sounds like it should be followed with “I am screaming from laughter” or “we did it, we found the best thing on the internet” or “and this is why I always reblog this”
As someone who started playing TTRPGs with the good ole AD&D 2e (even though 3.0 had just been released at the time, but not in my native language), I can say this tomato analogy thing fits quite well the logic of older editions, where attributes were much more "narrow" in scope by RAW than nowadays.
@@ThomasFitch I agree, D&D outgrew certain things that were never good to begin with. Even though I have my grievances with D&D's contemporary design philosophy, the way attributes and skills are handled are definitely NOT among them (at least when compared to older D&D editions).
DnD skills are very complicated if you want to describe them accurately. For example charisma is not necessarily about interacting with other people - some spells like banishment use charisma saving throws as the power of your presence
For sure! INT, WIS, and CHA are especially abstract in certain cases. Like you're saying, charisma is a power of your presence, and occasionally sort of acts like willpower at times. Keeps you from being possessed by ghosts, fuels sorcerer's powers, and a lot of angelic beings use charisma for their general _divine influence._
this rant just reminded me that Charisma nowadays bears little resemblance to what the ability score represented pre-3e. Once 3e hit the shelves, it became the persuade/lie/seduce attack stat.
Yes, teaching methods have varying effectiveness on different people. The effectiveness however, does not only depend on the method of teaching, but also on the content that is actually taught. There is nothing wrong with using an analogy to teach concepts like the 5 stats. But this tomato analogy does not communicate accurately what these stats represent, as you explain in the video. There is no person that accurately grasps what these stats represent with the tomato analogy alone and this does not depend on how well you like this particular teaching method.
I like the two camera setup so that you can just turn your head and switch between Mr. Fitch, the calm and collected nerd friend, and Btd. Thomas, the friend who will take any opportunity to complain about scheduling conflicts.
I have always just assumed that this was a joke, targeted at somewhat experienced dnd players. But I agree, using this to teach new players is probably a terrible idea
I don't know the exact origin of where this joke came from, so I'm not 100% sure on how it was intended to be used, but that's also my assumption. It seems like the kind of thing that was used for a laugh and then got misused by some well meaning people that just didn't think it through.
I agree with your opinion on this. Although I found it useful when trying to teach kids how to play, more as an attention grabber and joke, then proceeding to give mechanical examples of how each of them is used in game, like explaining that constitution would be for resisting poisons or cold, and charisma can be to persuade or to resist charm effects. Add big expressive voices and the kids are hooked! (This was for around 10-13 years old)
I haven't ever played with kids, but that's such a good point. Even for some adults attention grabbers can be incredibly effective. You can have the best explanation in the world, but if you don't keep people's attention, they're retention for what you said will be absolute rubbish.
Your strength score is how many tomatoes you can crush at once. Charisma is how well you talk the street vendor out of calling the guards on your tomato-crushing barbarian.
I like to summarize them like this strength: You can hit hard, jump high, and lift heavy. Dexterity: You can dodge, shoot, and sneak good. Other thief stuff included. Constitution: You can tolerate more ouchies, and some ouchies hurt less. Intelligence: You can be like einstein or sun tzu. Wisdom: You can be like Buddha or sun... tzu.... wait hold on here! Charisma: You can talk good, look good, smell good, etc.
The tomatoes helped me learn the attributes when I first got into things. I built on it with my own understanding from play and rules, but yah, handy jumping off point. I now have been in multiple multi-year spanning campaigns and DM some too. Gimme tomatoes!! ❤ Awesome rant, very fun and insightful. 😋
I will alter the tomato system by changing the wording to better reflect the scores. Strength is your ability to crush, throw, or force a tomato through a ring Dexterity is your ability to dodge, sneak past, or juggle tomatoes Constitution is your ability to resist the poisonous tomato vine Intelligence is your ability to tell the various tomato fruits apart Wisdom is knowing not to date a tomato Charisma is your ability to date a tomato
Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Intelligence is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad. Intelligence is having the business skills necessary to sell a tomato-based fruit salad. Intelligence is being able to crush, dodge, or eat tomatoes no matter how rotten, because you know how to crush, dodge, and eat things. If you get sick from eating a rotten tomato, that doesn’t mean you didn’t eat it.
omg i'm a new player and thank you so much for explaining what wisdom is in a way i understand (well the book explained it, but i didn't know that was in a book so thank you)
if you want a short, quippy, and slightly less wrong explanation, here's one: strength: How hard you hit, how much you lift. Constitution: How hard you can get hit. Dexterity: everything else physical. Int: book smarts Wis: Street smarts Cha: emotional intelligence/ force of personality.
The worst part is that tomato absolutely belongs in a fruit salad alongside cucumber, mandarin orange, sesame seeds, and a little sweet dressing. Maybe some cilantro, parsley, or green onion if you want to go nuts. I got a couple others built around strawberry or watermelon. Tomato and fruit go great together.
I generally say intelligence equates to processing power (like a computer) and memory (also like a computer), whereas wisdom is a measurement of instinct. When wisdom is in play it is an ability you arent thinking about. Like a task you've done a million times, and doing it once more is just auto pilot, or noticing something with perception
I use it as a good starting point for new players because it is already a huge info dump when starting, I do agree that it is not a good long term description but it gives a starting point.
A big problem I had when getting into dnd was feeling like I was drowning in information. So whenever I introduce it to new people, I try to use the most concise and simple explanation. It might lose a lot of the nuance, but it helps people wrap their heads around the vibe. The problem isn't that I don't think they'll understand the basic attributes the problem is that this is one of a million other things I'm trying to help them understand while making sure they don't feel overwhelmed.
Totally! I think everybody has this same issue when trying to introduce the game to people. It's a really difficult balance to properly explain things while making sure you don't drown people in information that they'll never retain. And, since everyone learns differently, it's basically impossible to truly get right every time.
Also fun fact: Saying "Tomatoes are a fruit" is as correct as saying "Dandelion fluff is a fruit", it's botanically true, but not culinarly. In culinary terms tomatoes are vegetables.
Personally I look at the "tomato analogy" more as a bit of humor than actually explaining the ability scores. I do use it occasionally, but definitely add caveats to each of the six statements. And, based on my experiences with D&D, I can confirm that this analogy started before 4e was a thing. I remember first hearing it around the time of the D&D 3 to 3.5 transition. With that said though, the analogy could be older than that (AD&D 2nd, maybe?).
Wisdom got explained to me as "street smarts" which is mostly acurate i think, if you are on the streets you gotta be able to see fast, think on the spot and have some weird knowledge/intuition, it ain't perfect but it's pretty good imo
I really love this rant video, it opened my eyes to the ignorance of the issue of the tomato analogy. I'd love a rant on class stereotypes or just on there core fantasies
Intellect is knowing the tomato explanation Wisdom is noticing that Tomas is starting to fume and will probably punch you for wasting everyone's time with the tomato explanation
Strength is brute strength, dex is dodging and manual dexterity. Constitution is CONcentration and endurance. Intelligence is Academics and study, Wisdom is folk knowledge and common sense, and charisma is social skills. Strength a dex abilities are generally two sides of the physical skill coin, and Wisdom and Int are the two sides of the mental coin. Con and Cha just are what they are.
for the record, i think the expanded version came from a tumblr discussion, and if you know the tumblr humour of "everyone is desperately trying to be the dumbest person in the room", that should clarify why the explanations are a bit nonsense
I didn't know the intelligence and wisdom ones, which I've heard without the others and out of context, were meant to be about dnd. I thought it was just a general funny observation (probably by and for dull people who are not particularly intelligent and think intelligence means knowing trivia, and that wisdom is just common sense, which would imply the more wise you are the more average you are). Oh, you bring up the fact that that part predates the dnd thing I'd never heard of, good.
Sometimes the faceless overlords of the TH-cam algorithm get it right. I love me a good needlessly researched and highly opinionated rant about a specific topic.
It honestly describes ONE ASPECT of what the ability scores CAN do. If that is emphasized, then the tomato explanation is a great entry-level introduction, but it is surface-level, low-effort, and ultimately less effective than just using more practical explanations.
You sound like me scrolling the same crap memes over and over and wishing people could devise some better content than the same "Can a vampire cop enter your house with a warrant?" junk.
*Also*, many things in this list are things that can easily be done by someone with middling to even bad scores in each stat. Take crushing a tomato, for instance. Anyone can do that, it's not special like carrying around 300 pounds of gear all day without getting tired, or forcing open an iron door. Likewise, you don't need high Int or Wisdom to know basic things like how to prepare food. You might need high Int for your character to recall a piece of information that you, the player, don't already know (what fruits are most popular in Region X, for example) but you don't need it to know basic things like what a fruit salad is, or to plan how to make one using the information available to you. I find it also useful to emphasize the *limitations* of the ability scores; that is, the things not encompassed by them; because one common mistake I see is people (especially DMs) arbitrarily limiting players based on their own ideas about what ability scores are for. The truth is that each score affects a certain limited subset of things you can do, and isn't really as impactful as its name might imply. One of the most common and egregious cases of this is people *over*-emphasizing Intelligence - DMs or players getting annoyed with *players* who choose to plan and make smart tactical decisions because the *character* they're playing has low Int - not realizing that Int affects the character's ability to find/recall information that the player doesn't already know, not the player's ability to make smart decisions with the available information. But there are also many even more egregious examples of this sort of thing, like DMs arbitrarily making random Dex checks to not trip over your shoelaces.
This remind a lot of evolution of ideas or memes as there called(A play on gene). Memes evolve and change just like animals do. Memes become better and more suited for there environment after constant iterations. Becuse the environment is the human sphere of continuous (just your mind and others mind). And now back to tomato's. A meme is constantly changing and creating offspring memes in your mind. This makes it hard to contain jokes in your head. Becuse the exact wording and timing can get muddled and changed due to the evolution process. So a joke like: "What's brown, long and sticky? A stick". Is a easy joke to remember becuse the three words can be in any order. And the joke still makes sense and is funny. So the the tomato's fall fault to how easy it is to spread that meme. The players hand book is long and can be muddled up. Am not arguing for the tomato's. I just like spreading the idea of meme evolution around. If you want to learn more. I suggest reading the book. "On the Origin of Tepees: The Evolution of Ideas (and Ourselves)" By Jonnie Hughes. Its a very funny book trying to teach you instead of spewing facts. Its written like a story then a thesis paper.
Charisma would be convincing someone that while it is not the same as a fruit salad Salsa can be thought of as a fruit salad. It's explicitly not a salad nor not entirely fruit and not a main course. It is however someone convincing someone against their better judgement that an incorrect idea is correct.
You got your point across well. But I think there is a step to add about a good way to make the meaning of the 6 stats stick that is better than reading out the book definitions. Probably what you would prefer is a clever way to describe actual use of the stats in the game. Such as replacing tomato with “mimic” and making more accurate references.
"I only get to play once every two months..." I'm sure someone has already suggested finding an online-only group that has better availability than your regular one, but have you considered playing solo? It's been scratching the itch for me way better than I expected it would.
@@ThomasFitch I should check out her video on it. There are a lot of different approaches to it -- like, I use ChatGPT to handle my NPC interactions but a lot of others are wholly against that -- so if one paradigm doesn't quite work for you, maybe another will.
I think charisma is the worst affected by the tomato considering how much more vague charisma could be. Like you could be really pretty as charisma, or maybe you command respect with your presence. Maybe you're a smooth talker or you lighten the mood of people with jokes. Int and wis get talked about a lot, but charisma, I think, was the hardest for me to wrap my head around when trying to role-play it.
Hey you're saved from my ramblings about how this games rulebook is longer than my old microbiology textbook and literally anything to save time on setup that can be classified later is fine by me because who in your life called salsa a fruit salad we need to have little talk
I cringed when I saw people using this tomato chart unironically. It was alright the first time, but apperantly it is an infestation. Its bad when a meme becoming serious after people forgetting it was a joke in the first place.
I've never used this, or heard it. And this video is aptly named. I've also never found the ability scores hard to explain. Why Perception isn't its own stat on the other hand...
I came to the conclusion that the tomato explanation is just a quick and easy joke to make to new players. If you want to know how stats works read your goddam character sheet or learn trough playing the game at your own pace. Nobody is gonna take you a test of this and the rules can be bend at the dms will. If makes sense go 4 it.
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Every time I have seen this method used to try and teach people the game I just see their eyes glaze over, so I'm genuinely curious to hear anyone's stories where they've had success in using it, either with somebody else or for yourself. So please leave a comment if you have any experiences where this has worked!
I did it and I think it worked, it was not the only thing I said but I think it really helpped.
Back at the end of 3rd edition (so, yes - this was being used at D&D tables _well_ before 5th edition), someone brought up the fruit/salad analogy at a table I was playing at, and someone else pointed out that 'knowing not to put tomato in fruit salad' would be a knowledge or craft skill check (per 3rd edition rules, anyway), and both of those are governed by INT. This led to a long discussion about which skills and saves were actually governed by each mental attribute, and that helped a lot with understanding what the conceptual differences were _supposed_ to be.
You did a pretty good job at making the video somewhat funny.
Is it petty ? To some extent yes.
Does the rant make sense though ? Yes.
Also : while teaching do differ from person to person for highest effectiveness it is very unlikely that a throw away line that does not even scratch the surface of a concept could even start to qualify as "teaching"
Have a good day.
This really brings to light just how badly INT and WIS are conflated conceptually, in-game, and IRL.
I think this is doubly so because of how in real life they're very much synonyms. A lot of synonyms aren't perfect one to one fits, but have a general overlap that let's us use them in similar ways when communicating. When you try and use real language as labels for fully separate things in gaming, though, you have a big issue when they get conflated.
@@ThomasFitch Honest question that I have not looked into at all: has anyone done the work to figure out if just straight merging them works in 5e? Or is it OP somehow or something?
They're certainly different in dnd perhaps a renaming though@blahthebiste7924
@@blahthebiste7924Pathfinder 2e has only 3 types of saving throws. So you could merge them in 5e but that would still unbalance the game because what Wisdom does mechanically is different to Intelligence
@@ThomasFitch *lets
"roll athletics to walk out of the room"
That's just FATAL
Two points (one short, the other... very not short):
1. A use for the tomato "system" is as something of a mnemonic device, as much as it's kind of a stretch to try and fit everything to the tomato and doesn't actually explain the ability scores well, it's memorable and stands out in people's minds. There are probably still better ways to reach that same goal, but it is at least A use.
2. For quite a few reasons, Wis, and especially Cha, confuse a lot of players; particularly in how and why they affect actual game mechanics the way they do, and most attempts to figure out plausible reasons for the odd-er stuff make one major oversight; Wis and Cha don't actually make sense for a lot of their intended uses, but they USED to, because of world building.
You see, Wisdom is not just intuition and being attuned to the world around you; it's also your spiritual awareness and understanding, as well as your strength of character and willpower. There's a reason that most divine spell casting is Wisdom; because hearing and interpreting the will and words of the gods, sensing the flow of destiny, or the vibes of nature; those are all Wisdom traits. Being in tune with this things and essentially having the spiritual 'clout' to call upon forces mightier than you is how Wisdom casters fundamentally work. In addition, don't forget that prior to 5e (and still in PF), the only mental-stat save was "Will" (which is Wisdom-based) which was used to resist the influence of magic as an abstract or controlling force, rather than contending with the effects it produced.
Non-caster classes can still re-enforce this version of Wisdom; with the most obvious being Monks (spiritual, meditative, in tune with and one with the world and themselves, in emotional control and morally incorruptible and unshakable in faith or by fear? Yup); but also frequently Barbarians (don't often care about it, but still might come from tribal and pagan cultures that view the world as intensely spiritual; and willpower is an obvious one), and others like Pathfinder's Gunslingers (one main mechanic is called "grit" and represents basically an immovable toughness and stoicism that lets the pull off amazing feats under pressure that would break anyone else).
If you really want to understand how Wisdom worked in D&D before many of the details were lost in the modern streamlining, read the Lord of the Rings. LotR (books mostly, this stuff is drastically changed in the movies) has a primarily Wisdom-based magic system; it's very much about tying strength of character to the strength of the magic; look at how Faramir vs Boromir handle the temptation of the Ring (Wisdom/Will save representing 'character' as the key to resisting charms and enchantments), or when Aragorn safely deals with the dead army or Frodo (a couple times) invokes an legendary Elvish name to access power or drive away evil (attunement to and harnessing of the Spiritual), or compare how Denathor vs Aragorn fair when using the Palantir (Denathor, who is mentioned to be intellectually on par with the likes of Aragorn and Gandalf, is swayed by despair from Sauron's influence through it; while Aragorn actually manages to not only resist Sauron's temptations and scrying, but actually wrests control of the Palantir away from him), or how in the 'House of Healing' section of Return of the King, it's demonstrated how Aragorn is able to heal not just physical but magical and spiritual maladies through his own strength of character (LotR is basically why Rangers are the way they are, including their Wisdom-based magic stuff).
Similarly, you can also look at Star Wars. Jedi in general, are a Wisdom-based class, and Obi-wan, Yoda, and Qui-Gon demonstrate this probably best. They specifically all do this thing where they just sense things, their greatest power comes from listening to what the Force is saying to them and to essentially speaking back to it; and this is a Wisdom thing in D&D.
Charisma, on the other hand, in addition to the standard social stuff; is also tied to magic in certain ways; as Charisma is mostly about pure, natural, innate talent; but it's also the ability to harness magic itself efficiently by gut instinct.
Think about Bards as casters; they don't need to actually know the physics of how their spells affect the world, they don't need to align themselves with a deity or abstract living force to call upon it's aid; they just have to be talented, because if you're talented enough, the magic just kind of... happens for you. Sometimes it's not about external talents and skills like Bards use, sometimes it's more about the innate power, but still run by instinct and a sense of expressing that power; this is how Sorcerers work, they are just born special and Charisma represents how the act of harnessing and expressing your own specialness is inherently tied to how magic works (it's also worth noting that most monsters, by stats, use Cha as the default to determine their magical effects; and at least in PF, undead actually use Cha for their HP instead of Con; which fits with the idea of power+desire being enough to literally make the dead walk).
While Sorcerers are born great and Bards achieve greatness; others, like Paladins and Warlocks, have that 'greatness' thrust upon them; they get their powers from some powerful, otherworldly force like Clerics do, but where Clerics use their Wisdom to connect to that force and call on it to act on their behalf, these classes use their Charisma, their innate talents and ability to utilize what was given to them to wield those powers much more directly themselves. One of the other things that ties into that idea is how in older editions (and, again, PF) there was a skill called 'Use Magic Device' that was used to activate wands and scrolls for spells you couldn't cast yourself, this was a Cha skill in the same way as Diplomacy and Bluff (Persuasion and Deception in 5e); and in the early playtests for PF2e, they were playing around with the idea of giving characters limited use of magic items based on "resonance" which was in turn, based on Charisma, which taps into the same idea; as does their more recent introduction of the Thaumaturge class (which is super awesome by the way), which is usually a monster-hunting type who uses trinkets and items and artifacts to achieve magical effects.
Int accomplishes things by thinking them through and solving them logically; Wis accomplishes things by meditating on them and learning to understand and call upon the connections between all things; Cha accomplishes things by drawing on the Shia Labouf Meme and "JUST... DO(ing) IT!". Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Qui-Gon may listen to the will of the Force and take directions and lessons from it, they might learn to be one with it so that their desires are its desires, which is how they get it to do things; but Anakin is a Charisma-based Force user. He's just innately, by nature, so much more naturally talented and powerful than everyone else, he does stuff with the Force by just flexing and making it do what he wants; the Force just likes him and flocks to him and does his bidding because he's just so special.
Anyways; in general, that's how I've managed to understand them in a way that makes sense of and with most of the mechanics; it's not always 100% consistent (especially since I think lots of designers even working at the companies that make these games don't quite understand it all), but a lot of that comes from the original intent and ideas kind of being lost over time (especially in the move to 5e).
And that's just mostly magic. Charisma also used to tell you how many followers you got working under you too.
so this tomato explanation is actually from an old text based rpg called arctic mud, in the game people didnt actually get to know their ability scores until doing something special at a high level, so they figured out how to calculate their scores by doing different things with tomatoes. for example, they would calculate dexterity by seeing how many tomatoes they could fit into their inventory.
This is fascinating! For anyone curious, Arctic MUD is still playable to this day. It's been going on since 1992. It's "loosely based on TSR's Dragonlance novels," and seems inspired by D&D, using the exact same ability scores. I can't find any direct proof the tomato explanation is from this community yet, but there isn't a ton of information that's easily accessible, it seems. This is definitely the kind of story I could easily see coming out of this sort of game, though. Super cool.
Thanks so much for that!
I've used a modified version of it with more specificity using each ability: Athletics is lifting a barrel of tomatoes, Acrobatics is doing a flip over a barrel of tomatoes, sleight of hand is taking the keys off the tomato farmer's belt, stealth is sneaking into the tomato farmer's back room, arcana is knowing that the materials in the back room are for a tomato god summoning ritual, history is knowing that there was once a tomato based society in this region, nature is knowing that tomatoes are out of season and its weird they're still ripe, religion is knowing the god of tomatoes is a vengeful god, animal handling is keeping the tomato farmer's dog quiet while you investigate, insight is knowing the dog is hurt from its body language, medicine is bandaging the dog's paw, perception is spotting the farmer running out of his house behind you, survival is following his tracks, deception is convincing him you just wanna talk, intimidation is threating him to stop the ritual with violence, performance is juggling tomatoes to calm him down, persuasion is convincing him to still give you a job. It has a lot of the same pitfalls, notably the length of it, but i find it fun and make sure to point them in the direction of the PHB anyway
for skills, it kind of makes sense, because those are intentionally closer to a single dimension. It's still kind of awkward because it's a big info dump, but if it helps it helps.
And apparently, you've gone and weaved a story with it. It's a silly story, much like the original joke, but... it's a story.
@@StarshadowMelodyImagine how silly it would get if they failed every ability check, them dice gotta go
@@TechnicalTactician ... probably wouldn't be my idea of a fun read. I'm not everyone, obviously, but...
@@StarshadowMelody may I suggest you take a look at a clip of someone failing every quick time event in Detroit become human, it is hilarious 😂.
I do truly sympathize with the desire to have a fun, quippy way to explain the scores. For a lot of people D&D is just a social game, and they usually respond to being asked to read rules text like I'm asking them to pull off a hangnail.
Honestly I think the only effect of the tomato method is making people _feel_ like they get it, which gets them over a hurdle so they can actually play the game. It's much easier to get them to go back and read the rulebook after that (or more likely, I give them a more thorough explanation later).
Dude, I know so many people like that. And, ya know, it's fair. I don't want my friends to feel like I'm giving them homework when I ask them to play a new game with me, and if ttrpgs are a fully new thing to somebody, rule books can feel just as dense and cryptic as a 500 page calc textbook.
this is how i imagine the druid explaining the plan to the barbarian
Can confirm that the tomato analogy has been floating around since at least 3.0.
I seem to recall it being around in the 90's as well, but I am less certain of that memory.
I want to say that I first read it in middle school, in a copy of dragon magazine.
I am an old goblin.
Well now the journalist in me wants to go flipping through every Dragon Magazine I can find.
@@ThomasFitch I think the important context is that I first encountered the analogy as a joke. It was always a joke and was never intended for use as a serious teaching tool.
I think this phenomenon has a lot to say about the totalizing effects of online meme-culture and its fundamental incompatibility with rules learning in the context of ttrpg’s.
I get the feeling that a lot of people approach the rules of D&D, specifically, with an online-osmosis style of pedagogy.
My perception of this is likely due to the popularity of the game, as the game has always had some players who weren’t really interested in reading the rules, and I suspect that many of them would have been epic meme-lords and shit-posters given the opportunity.
I say this without judgement.
The dungeon master’s road is lonely, and not everyone wants a hobby that consists of 80% reading alone and 20% wishing that others would also do some of the reading.
I mean, jesus, I compiled a list of important page numbers, arranged them by content and relevance, and wrote them out by hand on 3x5 index cards that you players could all use them as book marks. What more do you want from me?
This makes it sound like I might hate Dungeons and Dragons. I do.
But, I love it, too. And, furthermore, I love it with a depth and passion that only someone who hates it can.
We were talking about tomatoes, I think.
I would definitely go combing through old back-issues of Dragon Magazine, but all of mine are in storage, atm.
Happy Hunting
@@GoblinWife I'm an older goblin and I remember seeing a version of this online in the late 80s/early 90s. It was originally just a joke reference to the Miles Kington quote swapping the word "Intelligence" for the word "Knowledge" - most likely in someone's Usenet signature. Someone saw it and asked "Isn't a tomato-based fruit salad basically salsa?" which got the reply "Hey everyone! I found the bard!"
Hot take: in a medieval-esqe European-esqe fantasy setting, there should be no tomatoes.
Well the main setting of dnd is not medieval based.
If your game is set in literal historical medieval Europe a tomato is more anachronistic than a gun, if your game is _not_ set in the literal historical Earth continent of medieval Europe then there's no reason the tomato seller in the market shouldn't be strapped.
Its fantasy
I feel like anybody who's that obsessed with historical accuracy would be playing another system/simply LARPing. Hard to agree with keeping tomatoes out of the game when squid people and floating blue hands are just things that exist.
Changing which crops are native to which continents is an incredibly straightforward piece of worldbuilding to do. Of course there are knock-on effects but for something like the tomato(as opposed to like maize or cattle) those will be pretty minor.
I will point out that in earlier editions, and the tomatoes an old joke, an alternative system for setting dcs really was "Every character with a Str above 14 can do this task. No character with a strength below 14 can do this task." Which was part of the utility of bumping an even ability score to be odd: your modifier stayed the same, but your static checks increased.
I think the biggest problem with trying to teach TTRPGs to new players is that so many videos or well-meaning GMs rely on the weirdest, most abstract and comical ways to teach everything. It leads to the prevailing misconception that TTRPGs aren't proper games with rules and mechanics, because a lot of new players expect them to just be 'a vibe' or improv or something.
When I was teaching my friends how to play Pathfinder, when the question of the six attributes came up, I described them every skill in the game and how they worked. It took a bit (about 30m), but I think it gave a decently comprehensive idea on the variety of ways you can use every stat and skill.
I bet they stopped asking questions after that
@@stevecarter8810 More or less. The four magic skills are still kind of confusing to them, but everything else they have a decent idea on now.
Pretty sure the int/wis part of the tomato thing was the original quote. Then somebody on tumblr or smthn expanded, which is why every line sounds like it should be followed with “I am screaming from laughter” or “we did it, we found the best thing on the internet” or “and this is why I always reblog this”
As someone who started playing TTRPGs with the good ole AD&D 2e (even though 3.0 had just been released at the time, but not in my native language), I can say this tomato analogy thing fits quite well the logic of older editions, where attributes were much more "narrow" in scope by RAW than nowadays.
That's a very solid perspective, I didn't even consider that. Some things just don't age well. Maybe D&D just outgrew it!
@@ThomasFitch I agree, D&D outgrew certain things that were never good to begin with.
Even though I have my grievances with D&D's contemporary design philosophy, the way attributes and skills are handled are definitely NOT among them (at least when compared to older D&D editions).
DnD skills are very complicated if you want to describe them accurately. For example charisma is not necessarily about interacting with other people - some spells like banishment use charisma saving throws as the power of your presence
For sure! INT, WIS, and CHA are especially abstract in certain cases. Like you're saying, charisma is a power of your presence, and occasionally sort of acts like willpower at times. Keeps you from being possessed by ghosts, fuels sorcerer's powers, and a lot of angelic beings use charisma for their general _divine influence._
this rant just reminded me that Charisma nowadays bears little resemblance to what the ability score represented pre-3e. Once 3e hit the shelves, it became the persuade/lie/seduce attack stat.
Always been even in 1st edition though.
It's much easier to lie to someone who trust you for no reason because you have a bonus to people's reaction.
Yes, teaching methods have varying effectiveness on different people. The effectiveness however, does not only depend on the method of teaching, but also on the content that is actually taught. There is nothing wrong with using an analogy to teach concepts like the 5 stats. But this tomato analogy does not communicate accurately what these stats represent, as you explain in the video. There is no person that accurately grasps what these stats represent with the tomato analogy alone and this does not depend on how well you like this particular teaching method.
Babe wake up, the new Thomas Fitch video just dropped
That day they were amazed to discover that when he said D&D, what he meant was Pathfinder.
Imagine failing a strength check on crushing a tomato😂
Tomato made sense to me, and the charisma selling tomato fruit salad does require talking to people lol
7:56 ..."these tomatoes are not hurting anyone" 0:26 LIES
I love all the little tomato visual gags
I like the two camera setup so that you can just turn your head and switch between Mr. Fitch, the calm and collected nerd friend, and Btd. Thomas, the friend who will take any opportunity to complain about scheduling conflicts.
I have always just assumed that this was a joke, targeted at somewhat experienced dnd players. But I agree, using this to teach new players is probably a terrible idea
I don't know the exact origin of where this joke came from, so I'm not 100% sure on how it was intended to be used, but that's also my assumption. It seems like the kind of thing that was used for a laugh and then got misused by some well meaning people that just didn't think it through.
I guess dexterity is your dump stat since you didn't dodge the tomato?
I think the tomato analogy is cute, even if it is impractical
Bro became the Green Goblin by the end there.
However
If we didn't use the tomato explanation, we wouldn't get this video.
Maybe the real treasure was the unhinged arguments we had along the way.
I agree with your opinion on this. Although I found it useful when trying to teach kids how to play, more as an attention grabber and joke, then proceeding to give mechanical examples of how each of them is used in game, like explaining that constitution would be for resisting poisons or cold, and charisma can be to persuade or to resist charm effects. Add big expressive voices and the kids are hooked! (This was for around 10-13 years old)
I haven't ever played with kids, but that's such a good point. Even for some adults attention grabbers can be incredibly effective. You can have the best explanation in the world, but if you don't keep people's attention, they're retention for what you said will be absolute rubbish.
And just like that, your Charisma, Intelligence and Wisdom enticed me to subscribe
Such a specific and obscure video about D&D discourse. I love it
Babe wake up another banger just dropped
Your strength score is how many tomatoes you can crush at once. Charisma is how well you talk the street vendor out of calling the guards on your tomato-crushing barbarian.
I like to summarize them like this
strength: You can hit hard, jump high, and lift heavy.
Dexterity: You can dodge, shoot, and sneak good. Other thief stuff included.
Constitution: You can tolerate more ouchies, and some ouchies hurt less.
Intelligence: You can be like einstein or sun tzu.
Wisdom: You can be like Buddha or sun... tzu.... wait hold on here!
Charisma: You can talk good, look good, smell good, etc.
The tomatoes helped me learn the attributes when I first got into things. I built on it with my own understanding from play and rules, but yah, handy jumping off point. I now have been in multiple multi-year spanning campaigns and DM some too. Gimme tomatoes!! ❤ Awesome rant, very fun and insightful. 😋
You saying whore took me completely off-guard and made me laugh out loud! That was great!
Generally just a great video, really enjoying it!
I needed to watch this, and the tomato hurt me in ways beyond your ken.
Just putting it out there, snarky rant or not, this was bloody hilarious!
I will alter the tomato system by changing the wording to better reflect the scores.
Strength is your ability to crush, throw, or force a tomato through a ring
Dexterity is your ability to dodge, sneak past, or juggle tomatoes
Constitution is your ability to resist the poisonous tomato vine
Intelligence is your ability to tell the various tomato fruits apart
Wisdom is knowing not to date a tomato
Charisma is your ability to date a tomato
i wasnt sure about this video but i was completely hooked after “it’s fucking garbage trash”
Strength is strength.
Intelligence is intelligence.
We don't need any explanations aside from the definitions these words already have.
Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Intelligence is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.
Intelligence is having the business skills necessary to sell a tomato-based fruit salad.
Intelligence is being able to crush, dodge, or eat tomatoes no matter how rotten, because you know how to crush, dodge, and eat things. If you get sick from eating a rotten tomato, that doesn’t mean you didn’t eat it.
omg i'm a new player and thank you so much for explaining what wisdom is in a way i understand (well the book explained it, but i didn't know that was in a book so thank you)
And thats why I call wisdom instinct in my own TTRPG. It is way less confusing and clearly separates it from intelligence.
if you want a short, quippy, and slightly less wrong explanation, here's one:
strength: How hard you hit, how much you lift.
Constitution: How hard you can get hit.
Dexterity: everything else physical.
Int: book smarts
Wis: Street smarts
Cha: emotional intelligence/ force of personality.
Hyped, loved your DnD takes video so much I went and watched your "sleep tight" one and loved it to.
Wisdom is knowing this video is technically correct. Intellect is knowing the saying is better.
The worst part is that tomato absolutely belongs in a fruit salad alongside cucumber, mandarin orange, sesame seeds, and a little sweet dressing. Maybe some cilantro, parsley, or green onion if you want to go nuts.
I got a couple others built around strawberry or watermelon. Tomato and fruit go great together.
Good news man youtube recommended me this vid via notif and I doubt im the only one
I generally say intelligence equates to processing power (like a computer) and memory (also like a computer), whereas wisdom is a measurement of instinct. When wisdom is in play it is an ability you arent thinking about. Like a task you've done a million times, and doing it once more is just auto pilot, or noticing something with perception
I've definitely heard pettier rants about D&D. I feel so lied to...
Haha! You know, I honestly did overestimate the D&D community on this one. Don't get me wrong, I love us nerds, but damn we can be petty-ass nerds.
I use it as a good starting point for new players because it is already a huge info dump when starting, I do agree that it is not a good long term description but it gives a starting point.
A big problem I had when getting into dnd was feeling like I was drowning in information. So whenever I introduce it to new people, I try to use the most concise and simple explanation. It might lose a lot of the nuance, but it helps people wrap their heads around the vibe. The problem isn't that I don't think they'll understand the basic attributes the problem is that this is one of a million other things I'm trying to help them understand while making sure they don't feel overwhelmed.
Totally! I think everybody has this same issue when trying to introduce the game to people. It's a really difficult balance to properly explain things while making sure you don't drown people in information that they'll never retain. And, since everyone learns differently, it's basically impossible to truly get right every time.
Also fun fact: Saying "Tomatoes are a fruit" is as correct as saying "Dandelion fluff is a fruit", it's botanically true, but not culinarly. In culinary terms tomatoes are vegetables.
Personally I look at the "tomato analogy" more as a bit of humor than actually explaining the ability scores. I do use it occasionally, but definitely add caveats to each of the six statements.
And, based on my experiences with D&D, I can confirm that this analogy started before 4e was a thing. I remember first hearing it around the time of the D&D 3 to 3.5 transition. With that said though, the analogy could be older than that (AD&D 2nd, maybe?).
I have never seen this joke used to try to actually *teach* new players, and I'm baffled to learn that's apparently a thing people do.
Wisdom got explained to me as "street smarts" which is mostly acurate i think, if you are on the streets you gotta be able to see fast, think on the spot and have some weird knowledge/intuition, it ain't perfect but it's pretty good imo
Why do I feel like you’re slapping me around at the end?
I'm sending this to the players I DM for.
I don't think you did enough cut aways explaining the bit to us.
Such a fun video! Im now subscribed! :) (I still dont think I understand the difference between intelligence and wisdom lol)
💯💯💯WE MAKING IT OUT OF THE TOMATO GARDEN W THIS ONE BOYS❗❗❗
💯
the tomatoes thing did genuinely muddy the waters for me on int vs wis and i still struggle on where to draw the line between the two
I need to hear more of this guy's wisdom
you're my new favorite dnd youtuber and SCREW THOSE TOMATOES
this used to be my favourite method to consider the stats from, then it became my least favourite sometime this year, and I don't know what changed
The editing has improved. Facts.
I really love this rant video, it opened my eyes to the ignorance of the issue of the tomato analogy. I'd love a rant on class stereotypes or just on there core fantasies
"If you have a DM that makes you roll to crush a tomato" I'm questioning what is going on with this tomato. Is it really a normal tomato?
Now I need to use a Mimicmato (mimic tomato).
It is indeed the world's pettiest rant
In dnd beyond you can click on every single skill and it basically tells you what it can do
Intellect is knowing the tomato explanation
Wisdom is noticing that Tomas is starting to fume and will probably punch you for wasting everyone's time with the tomato explanation
Tomatoes? ARRRRGGGGG VIETNAME FLASH BACK AAAAGGGGGG
Strength is brute strength, dex is dodging and manual dexterity. Constitution is CONcentration and endurance. Intelligence is Academics and study, Wisdom is folk knowledge and common sense, and charisma is social skills.
Strength a dex abilities are generally two sides of the physical skill coin, and Wisdom and Int are the two sides of the mental coin. Con and Cha just are what they are.
for the record, i think the expanded version came from a tumblr discussion, and if you know the tumblr humour of "everyone is desperately trying to be the dumbest person in the room", that should clarify why the explanations are a bit nonsense
That's a very good description of Tumblr humor.
I didn't know the intelligence and wisdom ones, which I've heard without the others and out of context, were meant to be about dnd. I thought it was just a general funny observation (probably by and for dull people who are not particularly intelligent and think intelligence means knowing trivia, and that wisdom is just common sense, which would imply the more wise you are the more average you are).
Oh, you bring up the fact that that part predates the dnd thing I'd never heard of, good.
Sometimes the faceless overlords of the TH-cam algorithm get it right. I love me a good needlessly researched and highly opinionated rant about a specific topic.
It honestly describes ONE ASPECT of what the ability scores CAN do. If that is emphasized, then the tomato explanation is a great entry-level introduction, but it is surface-level, low-effort, and ultimately less effective than just using more practical explanations.
You sound like me scrolling the same crap memes over and over and wishing people could devise some better content than the same "Can a vampire cop enter your house with a warrant?" junk.
I feel you, but also, I have never heard that "vampire cop" bit before, and reading it here genuinely made me giggle out loud.
Please don't hate me.
Oh no. It's chill. I just saw it a lot and answered it in the context of both D&D 5e and more general TV show lore that I know of.
*Also*, many things in this list are things that can easily be done by someone with middling to even bad scores in each stat. Take crushing a tomato, for instance. Anyone can do that, it's not special like carrying around 300 pounds of gear all day without getting tired, or forcing open an iron door.
Likewise, you don't need high Int or Wisdom to know basic things like how to prepare food. You might need high Int for your character to recall a piece of information that you, the player, don't already know (what fruits are most popular in Region X, for example) but you don't need it to know basic things like what a fruit salad is, or to plan how to make one using the information available to you.
I find it also useful to emphasize the *limitations* of the ability scores; that is, the things not encompassed by them; because one common mistake I see is people (especially DMs) arbitrarily limiting players based on their own ideas about what ability scores are for. The truth is that each score affects a certain limited subset of things you can do, and isn't really as impactful as its name might imply. One of the most common and egregious cases of this is people *over*-emphasizing Intelligence - DMs or players getting annoyed with *players* who choose to plan and make smart tactical decisions because the *character* they're playing has low Int - not realizing that Int affects the character's ability to find/recall information that the player doesn't already know, not the player's ability to make smart decisions with the available information. But there are also many even more egregious examples of this sort of thing, like DMs arbitrarily making random Dex checks to not trip over your shoelaces.
This remind a lot of evolution of ideas or memes as there called(A play on gene). Memes evolve and change just like animals do. Memes become better and more suited for there environment after constant iterations. Becuse the environment is the human sphere of continuous (just your mind and others mind).
And now back to tomato's.
A meme is constantly changing and creating offspring memes in your mind. This makes it hard to contain jokes in your head. Becuse the exact wording and timing can get muddled and changed due to the evolution process. So a joke like: "What's brown, long and sticky? A stick". Is a easy joke to remember becuse the three words can be in any order. And the joke still makes sense and is funny.
So the the tomato's fall fault to how easy it is to spread that meme. The players hand book is long and can be muddled up.
Am not arguing for the tomato's. I just like spreading the idea of meme evolution around. If you want to learn more. I suggest reading the book. "On the Origin of Tepees: The Evolution of Ideas (and Ourselves)" By Jonnie Hughes. Its a very funny book trying to teach you instead of spewing facts. Its written like a story then a thesis paper.
Crushing a tomato doesn't need a lot of strength. Should be carrying crates of tomatoes or something.
What about the tomatoes used to explain the school's of magic.
Charisma would be convincing someone that while it is not the same as a fruit salad Salsa can be thought of as a fruit salad. It's explicitly not a salad nor not entirely fruit and not a main course. It is however someone convincing someone against their better judgement that an incorrect idea is correct.
You got your point across well. But I think there is a step to add about a good way to make the meaning of the 6 stats stick that is better than reading out the book definitions. Probably what you would prefer is a clever way to describe actual use of the stats in the game. Such as replacing tomato with “mimic” and making more accurate references.
"I only get to play once every two months..."
I'm sure someone has already suggested finding an online-only group that has better availability than your regular one, but have you considered playing solo? It's been scratching the itch for me way better than I expected it would.
I've seen Ginny Di's videos on that topic, but I haven't actually tried it yet. I probably should, though!
@@ThomasFitch I should check out her video on it. There are a lot of different approaches to it -- like, I use ChatGPT to handle my NPC interactions but a lot of others are wholly against that -- so if one paradigm doesn't quite work for you, maybe another will.
I think charisma is the worst affected by the tomato considering how much more vague charisma could be.
Like you could be really pretty as charisma, or maybe you command respect with your presence. Maybe you're a smooth talker or you lighten the mood of people with jokes.
Int and wis get talked about a lot, but charisma, I think, was the hardest for me to wrap my head around when trying to role-play it.
Hey you're saved from my ramblings about how this games rulebook is longer than my old microbiology textbook and literally anything to save time on setup that can be classified later is fine by me because who in your life called salsa a fruit salad we need to have little talk
I feel schizophrenic
So Wisdom is just like... common sense? or like, mom knowledge
4:04 But... persuasion _is_ charisma.
I cringed when I saw people using this tomato chart unironically. It was alright the first time, but apperantly it is an infestation.
Its bad when a meme becoming serious after people forgetting it was a joke in the first place.
I've never used this, or heard it. And this video is aptly named. I've also never found the ability scores hard to explain. Why Perception isn't its own stat on the other hand...
Jason Schwartzman
Yeah that's a petty rant alright
Ok but what am i using if i snort a tomato
if you do another video in a t shirt can you still wear the tie
Cute video, very much enjoyed it
I came to the conclusion that the tomato explanation is just a quick and easy joke to make to new players.
If you want to know how stats works read your goddam character sheet or learn trough playing the game at your own pace.
Nobody is gonna take you a test of this and the rules can be bend at the dms will.
If makes sense go 4 it.