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

[ad_hoc]

First off, I completely agree with your basic premise. However, as I pointed out in my initial post here (and others have pointed out as well), you went about this a bad way. Because Intelligence, the D&D score, isn't about how people perceive you; it's about your actual abilities. So if you're playing a person with Int 7, but you decide to play this person as being from a very different country and having problems adapting, you're saying "foreigner = stupid." Especially since your Int doesn't become higher if you were to travel back to your country, since that's not how D&D works. Same thing for any of the other ideas you posted there; none of them are really tied to Intelligence, the D&D stat--or any other D&D stat. At most, they're Personality Traits (to go along with Bonds, Ideals, and Flaws). "I am new to this country and I'm not adapting well."

Intelligence in D&D is about your ability to memorize facts and a character with an 8 Int has a marginally worse ability to do so.

No, this has nothing to do with stats when someone wants to play a 'stupid' character.

I'm not saying "foreigner = stupid" I'm staying no one = stupid.

I'm not providing alternate ways to play stupid characters because people shouldn't play stupid characters.

 

[Faolyn]

Intelligence in D&D is about your ability to memorize facts and a character with an 8 Int has a marginally worse ability to do so.

No, this has nothing to do with stats when someone wants to play a 'stupid' character.

I'm not saying "foreigner = stupid" I'm staying no one = stupid.

Right. But your initial post was incredibly vague, considering that this is a game that has attributes for mental characteristics.

 

[Umbran]

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.

Mod Note:
We discussed how you were going to have to be more respectful. Outright insulting people is right out.

You've earned yourself a week's vacation from EN World. If you choose to return, please don't treat people so shabbily.

 

[ad_hoc]

Right. But your initial post was incredibly vague, considering that this is a game that has attributes for mental characteristics.

No, no it wasn't.

 

[Charlaquin]

First off, I completely agree with your basic premise. However, as I pointed out in my initial post here (and others have pointed out as well), you went about this a bad way. Because Intelligence, the D&D score, isn't about how people perceive you; it's about your actual abilities. So if you're playing a person with Int 7, but you decide to play this person as being from a very different country and having problems adapting, you're saying "foreigner = stupid." Especially since your Int doesn't become higher if you were to travel back to your country, since that's not how D&D works. Same thing for any of the other ideas you posted there; none of them are really tied to Intelligence, the D&D stat--or any other D&D stat. At most, they're Personality Traits (to go along with Bonds, Ideals, and Flaws). "I am new to this country and I'm not adapting well."

Right, which illuminates the underlying issue of the socially constructed idea of “intelligence” as an inherent quality of someone’s brain functionality that can be be described with a single number and rated on a bell curve. It’s inaccurate nonsense in D&D and in real life. Don’t worry about “roleplaying your character’s intelligence,” give your character traits that you want to play, and let the system math do its thing.

 

[Lanefan]

There has never been a direct correlation between IQ distribution and the 3d6 bell curve ever mentioned in an official D&D book.

I think the 10/1 ratio is mentioned in the 1e DMG (might be the PH). I'll look up a page reference later if anyone cares.

 

[Faolyn]

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

Did I say you were? No. I didn't even imply you were. I asked why a hypothetical fellow gamer--in an incredibly loud place, according to you--would come over to your table to say you were being offensive? Right now, you're trying to claim that something... bad? would happen because one day a person might come over to you and say you're being offensive. This is a thing that hasn't even happened yet, but you're treating it as an inevitability.

 

[Lanefan]

In skilled play days, did anyone play a "stupid character"? For those folks should this be a non-issue?

If by stupid you mean dangerously-to-self-and-others unwise, then yes.

And I still do.

 

[Charlaquin]

Did I say you were? No. I didn't even imply you were. I asked why a hypothetical fellow gamer--in an incredibly loud place, according to you--would come over to your table to say you were being offensive? Right now, you're trying to claim that something... bad? would happen because one day a person might come over to you and say you're being offensive. This is a thing that hasn't even happened yet, but you're treating it as an inevitability.

You may have missed it, but the poster you’re responding to has been suspended for a week, so they won’t be able to answer you.

 

[Faolyn]

No, no it wasn't.

I think the fact that people have spent a chunk of these 18 pages trying to figure out what exactly you meant says otherwise.