Discussion How do stats actually work

First of all, it's not that this will really affect how I experience my novels, but I just find it really interesting.
And this is a rant about that

For example,
Say some dude gets really high strength and really low agility, because of general game knowledge, we expect this dude to be big and slow, but hits like a truck. But, if what strength means is general physical strength, then that means that this man can run extremely fast and hit extremely fast. Because if you're running or hitting, you use physical strength, not agility. he wouldn't be able to turn fast or be "agile" but it would be wrong to label him as slow.

Another would be, health/defense/stamina. Any of the things relating to how tanky someone can be. How would these stats actually work? Imagine you have a lot of defense, would that mean that someone can't stab you anymore. And if that's the case, would your skin be permanently hard to prevent these or would it just harden on impact. Another thing would be impact damage, like hammers or maces. They specialize in impact damage so would high defense help negate the impact inside your body or something.

There are a lot more things about stats that I just find kind of interesting, like how intelligence affects your memory, or how wisdom affects your decision-making skills. But typing that would be a pain.

tl;dr stats don't make sense and I find it interesing

 

there are novels that take a points like yours and explain it like;
the new world where the mc have so much (I belive) toughnes that hes barely moving cause hes so stiff
so much str that hes grow in size for more muscles
and other stuff.
what you point is an easy writing (not necesart bad) when the stats and logic isnt the main point of the story
and there are in/like game novels where the rules are like games and the game rules are what they supose to be and dont change this

 

Rationalizing stats makes no sense for the most part, I'd generally just think of them as game mechanics and leave it at that.

I mean, Defense by itself is already pretty impossible to imagine IMHO, I mean... Sure, I can understand giving defense stats to an armor, but to a person? Uhn... It's just skin, flesh, fat and bones there... I guess high defense would mean more Fat in your body?

 

I like the idea that MOBA is using it. Strength would be your muscle is strong, you hit hard but lack flexibility. Agility would be you are "lighter" than other, your muscle became more flexible, allowing you to hit faster, but not necessarily increase your movement speed. Intelligent made your brain power better, capable of doing mental work and could think faster or with more complexity.

 

When you think strength you think brawn. Most agility characters are portrayed as sleek and built for speed. Don't get me wrong, there are characters that defy the norm like in Dragonball.
I tend to write my characters along the lines you mentioned.

Spoiler: Write?

The Red Lands

 

Health/Defense does not necessarily have to equate to having an impenetrable skin.

For example, in real life, I'd say that young male teens have higher health/defense than old grandmas. You can push a young guy down the stairs and he might break a bone. But if you push an old grandma down the stairs, she'll probably die.

I think they've become such common tropes that they are the common sense. As @AliceShiki and @grish99 have said, they're just game mechanics. If you're a LitRPG author, it's easier to use that existing framework and roll with it instead of making a new one and confusing your readers in the process.

I also think that some of the flaws in the attributes are a necessity. For strength, sure it would make real-life sense for someone to be not only be strong, but also fast. (Unless they skip leg day and have a chicken-leg build). I also imagine that being buff would make you hardy and a tank too. But if the strength stat gave all those boosts, wouldn't that be too overpowered?