D&D 5E Don't play "stupid" characters. It is ableist.

[Vince_Snetterton]

So... you're expecting that a fellow gamer is going to come up to you and say you're offending them?

Also, there is a difference between a comedy act (which often do involve funny insults or raunchy topics, like this guys act apparently does) which has an audience whose entire reason for being there is to listen to the comedian, and just a random person who happens to be in the same room as you and is, presumably, shopping or playing in their own game.

OK. Let's assume that actually happens to you. Then what? What is going to make this hypothetical person leave what they were already doing to come over to you and say you're being offensive? Are you in fact going to be shouting out slurs or loudly discussing topics that are inappropriate if there are children there?

So this is where you are going now in this thread? Assuming I am bigot, especially with kids around?

For what it is worth, one of the DM's at the cafe is loud, really loud. He alternates between D&D and Warhammer RPG every week. And that crew has some pretty violent and crude language. People have asked his table to tone down the volume, so we can hear each other at other tables, but NEVER the content.

 

[Scribe]

I like to use Intelligence for initiative rolls, for this very reason. I've also considered it for ranged attacks, too.

I do the same for Initiative, but I also have Wisdom, so you have Dex (quick movement) Int (quick thinking) and Wisdom (perceptive observation of what could happen, letting you ready yourself).

 

[AtomicPope]

As a long time D&D gamer I'm done listening to people dictate their morals, wherever they come from, on other people's games.

This post stinks of moral panic.

 

[abirdcall]

I didn't disappear on purpose, I just work 12 hour shifts. Let me see if I can vaguely comment on some things.

The thread isn't about playing characters with severe cognitive impairments. If that is what you're doing, well you know what you're doing. (side note too - Those people are usually a lot 'smarter' than people give them credit for. They often get infantilized and treated as less than human and that is something we should be challenging within ourselves as well).

The thread is about how the concept of 'intelligence' as understood colloquially is a bunch of nonsense. Yes "IQ" and "G Intelligence" too.

The concept we have of intelligence in our culture is so ingrained that people take it for granted. A truism.

Multiple people have have referred to intelligence as inherent, going so far as to say it's something a person is born with. This is dangerous thinking which has been used to support eugenics (not saying that is what people meant by it when posting).

It has been pointed out that Intelligence originally in D&D was thought to correlate to the IQ scale. The IQ scale is a load of nonsense and so is D&D's original concept of intelligence. Thankfully in 5e intelligence is very narrow. Part of the point of the OP is to not draw broad conclusions of the character because of what the trait of 'intelligence' is called but to look instead at what it actually does in game.

Many cognitive traits and abilities our culture values we label as intelligence and then we label those who are lacking in those traits as 'stupid'.

Even if we were to grant that what our culture values is inherently good and right and we call some of that intelligence it still isn't correct to say it is inherent. There are countless factors both internal and external that are going to change, sometimes drastically, how intelligent a person is perceived to be.

A lot of "intelligence" is actually either a measurement of accumulated knowledge or the result of behaviours. This is why I listed a few traits and behaviours in the OP. Some people responded 'but that isn't what intelligence is.' And that is the point. Those traits and behaviours can make someone appear to us as unintelligent. Someone made reference to ADHD and said something along the lines of that doesn't make someone 'stupid' they just have traits and behaviours which make it difficult to succeed in our culture which expects different things from them. Many people with ADHD have reported that they thought of themselves as 'stupid' before their diagnosis. That's the problem, that's the harm.

There are numerous others. Find something someone is internally motivated to learn and they're going to have a much easier time learning it. Teach things in different ways - esp. different than in books - and a lot of people will do better. People who can learn from books tend to have a lot more accumulated knowledge because that is what we have valued. Now thankfully with new technologies many people have access to different ways to learn. Sometimes it's a matter of addressing cognitive distortions which inhibit learning. These are often learned and reinforced and can be addressed. It might be a matter of teaching someone from a different culture what the culture they're in values and how to learn and adapt to it. Maybe it's a matter of addressing 'learned helplessness' where the person doesn't apply themselves or attempt to accumulate knowledge because they have a negative self image wherein they believe they are incapable of doing so. Etc. Etc.

I didn't create this thread because something catastrophic happened. This is a result of seeing hundreds of threads about 'how to play PC or NPC with X intelligence' and other such things and seeing what people view as 'smart' and 'stupid'. I'm just challenging the common framing, that's all.

It's not about being 'offended' by what someone does in their basement. It's about how they think of other people and how they reinforce their beliefs. The roleplaying as an event in their basement isn't harmful. It's what they do after. It's not about directly treating people poorly (but please don't), it's about reinforcing harmful beliefs and attitudes which hurt others.

Our culture views some people as 'lesser' and we should fight that wherever we can.

So, don't play a 'stupid' character but do give a character traits and behaviours that get in the way.

Please don't take this post as being exhaustive on the topic. This was a rambling post too where I'm responding to various ideas in this thread, there is no central thesis that is being argued coherently throughout. It's not a research paper.

 

[SkidAce]

It is like comedy. What one person finds abhorrent, someone else, or maybe a ton of people, find very funny.

It is amazing how similar "comedy" can be to issues with how we treat people.

Obviously, making fun of somebody is wrong...you are hurting them in some fashion when you do.

BUT, I think we also agree that we laugh and joke and carry on with each other all the time, and this is okay.

BUT, in some ways all humor is at someone else's expense...guy slips on a banana peel, falls down...we laugh (some of us). A friend embarrasses themselves in some fashion on a first date, we laugh, etc. Finding things that are not derogatory towards someone in the "joke" is actually very hard.

I do not have the answer, but its a spectrum we should always be aware of.

 

[SkidAce]

Only if you're going with the boring Pepperoni Fighter build, or the Sausage Cleric. But on a Ham Warlock, those are some of the best.

If it doesn't have Pepperoni on it, its not a pizza.

 

[Vince_Snetterton]

It is amazing how similar "comedy" can be to issues with how we treat people.

Obviously, making fun of somebody is wrong...you are hurting them in some fashion when you do.

BUT, I think we also agree that we laugh and joke and carry on with each other all the time, and this is okay.

BUT, in some ways all humor is at someone else's expense...guy slips on a banana peel, falls down...we laugh (some of us). A friend embarrasses themselves in some fashion on a first date, we laugh, etc. Finding things that are not derogatory towards someone in the "joke" is actually very hard.

I do not have the answer, but its a spectrum we should always be aware of.

I played a lot of hockey when I was younger. I aslo played football (the sissy kind with the pads) as well as a ton of other sports. I fear that many of the posters here would run screaming from their first practice or the first game, when the trash-talking starts.

D&D has always been, and always will be, a violent, deadly game, at tables that I run, and the players that make dumb moves will reap the consequences of those dumb actions. And if other players make fun of that player for a dumb move, well, so be it.

 

[LongTimeLurker]

The one that bugs me the most is having low Cha means the character must be a disgusting naughty word.

I've always played my low CHA PCs as people with no filter, or as boorish oafs with no social graces, or someone who doesn't observe the normal mores of the milieu. Well, I'll occasionally give 'em a scar or a missing eye or a hook-hand too.

 

[abirdcall]

Oh, a thing I left out which may explain where I'm coming from.

A person isn't stupid but they can do stupid things.

They don't have the inherent nature of 'stupid' but they are capable of acting in stupid ways.

I improved my life when I stopped telling myself "I'm dumb" and instead said to myself "I did a dumb thing."

 

[MGibster]

BUT, in some ways all humor is at someone else's expense...guy slips on a banana peel, falls down...we laugh (some of us). A friend embarrasses themselves in some fashion on a first date, we laugh, etc. Finding things that are not derogatory towards someone in the "joke" is actually very hard.

A long, long time ago my friends and I were tossing the football around the yard. Someone threw the ball my way, but I didn't notice as I was staring at something in the distance and the tip of that pointed football hit me square in the meatballs. I mean my friend put a great spiral on that football and it came in at the perfect velocity and trajectory to hit both of my boys causing me to collapse onto the grass. So there I was, hands and knees on the ground as my friends all laughed. And somehow, despite the blinding pain and accompanying waves of nausea, I laughed along with them, and with every giggle I winced in pain reminding me that my meatballs were how hamburger patties. Sometimes we can laugh even when we're the butt of the joke.