Because roleplaying effectively, or having your character be interesting, in no way precludes being effective in combat.
This is not, strictly speaking, true. Most gaming systems—even D&D—encourage you to tie your roleplaying to your stats at some point. For example, our hypothetical crossbow-Wizard might take Point Blank instead of Spell Focus (or some similar Feat); this is a real tradeoff, since the number of Feats you can take is limited. A Rogue (or, indeed, any character) might spend his points on Diplomacy, Appraise, Knowledge and Profession instead of the usual Disable Device, etc. -- to reflect the fact that he settled down as an honest gem merchant after prison (presumably, only to be pulled into that One Last Job against his better judgement).
Of course, there’s no rule that says you can’t play a suave diplomat who has zero ranks in Diplomacy and Sense Motive and a Charisma score of 7. You can totally do that, if the GM allows it.
If we’re being strict, then you’re actually arguing against the converse of what I said — whether being effective in combat negatively impacts your roleplaying or interestingness. Which I also don’t think it does, but it’s a distinct point.
My actual point, in any case, is that there are many ways to roleplay. You can roleplay well and be interesting with a Charisma of 7 and zero ranks in social skills, and then again you can roleplay well and be interesting with a Charisma of 18 and maximum ranks in social skills. You’d be roleplaying different things in those two cases, presumably; but, you can have an effectively-built character in both of those cases as well. (The former might be a wizard, or a fighter, or a rogue, or something else; the latter might be a sorcerer, or a paladin, or a different kind of rogue etc. etc.)
It is an accepted truism among all the veteran D&D players I know, and have spoken to in various online gaming communities, that a good roleplayer can create an interesting character concept, and roleplay it well, to fit pretty much any set of game stats. My experience with many excellent gamers supports this. Given that fact, and D&D being a team game, it seems almost a no-brainer that you should pick game stats that make you game-mechanically effective, and build your interesting concept on top of that. (Or, conversely, make up a cool concept and then built it into an effective character — which is also eminently doable for the experienced gamer.)
This is not, strictly speaking, true. Most gaming systems—even D&D—encourage you to tie your roleplaying to your stats at some point. For example, our hypothetical crossbow-Wizard might take Point Blank instead of Spell Focus (or some similar Feat); this is a real tradeoff, since the number of Feats you can take is limited. A Rogue (or, indeed, any character) might spend his points on Diplomacy, Appraise, Knowledge and Profession instead of the usual Disable Device, etc. -- to reflect the fact that he settled down as an honest gem merchant after prison (presumably, only to be pulled into that One Last Job against his better judgement).
Of course, there’s no rule that says you can’t play a suave diplomat who has zero ranks in Diplomacy and Sense Motive and a Charisma score of 7. You can totally do that, if the GM allows it.
If we’re being strict, then you’re actually arguing against the converse of what I said — whether being effective in combat negatively impacts your roleplaying or interestingness. Which I also don’t think it does, but it’s a distinct point.
My actual point, in any case, is that there are many ways to roleplay. You can roleplay well and be interesting with a Charisma of 7 and zero ranks in social skills, and then again you can roleplay well and be interesting with a Charisma of 18 and maximum ranks in social skills. You’d be roleplaying different things in those two cases, presumably; but, you can have an effectively-built character in both of those cases as well. (The former might be a wizard, or a fighter, or a rogue, or something else; the latter might be a sorcerer, or a paladin, or a different kind of rogue etc. etc.)
It is an accepted truism among all the veteran D&D players I know, and have spoken to in various online gaming communities, that a good roleplayer can create an interesting character concept, and roleplay it well, to fit pretty much any set of game stats. My experience with many excellent gamers supports this. Given that fact, and D&D being a team game, it seems almost a no-brainer that you should pick game stats that make you game-mechanically effective, and build your interesting concept on top of that. (Or, conversely, make up a cool concept and then built it into an effective character — which is also eminently doable for the experienced gamer.)