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

[Faolyn]

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.

Yeah, that seems to have happened sometimes between me starting the reply and actually posting it. Oh well.

 

[Lanefan]

Even during the run of 3e and 4e I remember how people would brag about the session they had last week where “no one touched a die!”

Some would brag...others would complain...it's a can't win situation.

 

[ReshiIRE]

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

I pretty much agree with you (since the 18 pages of arguing isn't over whether your post could be understood, it's really about well... people not actually engaging in, you know, the premise and idea and screaming about being criticised maybe a little bit and then bringing in fecking IQ of all things to try to disprove your point?!), but you did say:

Maybe they find themselves in a culture which is very different than their own and they struggle to adapt. Their common isn't very good and the way they view the world is different than those around them.

That isn't reflective of what the INT score means; as problematic in aspects as it is, INT is more so treated as objective of a character's abilities. All of your other examples are fine, but this one wouldn't be covered by INT.

However, you are right in that people do often assume someone who is primarily speaks a different language or has a different culture to the place they currently find themselves in are often treated as if they are 'dumb' or 'stupid'.

 

[Charlaquin]

Some would brag...others would complain...it's a can't win situation.

Yeah, I don’t see the appeal personally. I mean, I kind of do - improvisational acting can be a lot of fun, especially with a cool premise and interesting characters. But, you don’t need D&D to do that. D&D is also a game, with rules and strategy and all that junk. When I want to play D&D, I want to engage in both.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

does that mean we should ban driving trucks?

You know we heavily regulate driving trucks, right? Like…it’s much more restricted than anything suggested in this thread.

that if you want a D&D game where no PC has a stat lower than average,

No one suggested that.

And we do. If someone at our table were low intelligence, nobody would make fun of that person or try to roleplay a low intelligence when it might make that person feel bad about himself. So long as nobody at our table is below average in intelligence, though, it's no harm, no foul. My players aren't going to suddenly start going out and making fun of low intelligence people just because we roleplay low intelligence PCs.

I’ve seen you comment on ADHD before. Your ADHD never lead to people talking to you like you’re stupid?

Because every time someone equates low intelligence to bad memory I certainly like that person a bit less than I did before. Just one example.

I’ve also had people call me stupid because I didn’t pay attention to something because my mind was running away on a wild tangent that I couldn’t stop.

Well, I can tell that some people posting here have never had a relative classified as mentally handicapped or had a friend with a relative like that.

exactly.

Not commenting on the actual point, but I do find it interesting to see it made here while so much of Tumblr and Twitter are pretty enamored by the himbo and herbo archetypes for characters

“Herbo”? I have never seen that word before. I’ve only seen people call such characters a himbo, regardless of gender.

 

[ad_hoc]

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.

This.

 

[ad_hoc]

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

Maybe they just aren't very intelligent.


(to be clear I think intelligence is a load of nonsense. It's a joke made to make fun of someone who is insistent that I'm not making sense because there are lots of pages arguing over the OP).

 

[Charlaquin]

I pretty much agree with you (since the 18 pages of arguing isn't over whether your post could be understood, it's really about well... people not actually engaging in, you know, the premise and idea and screaming about being criticised maybe a little bit and then bringing in fecking IQ of all things to try to disprove your point?!), but you did say:

That isn't reflective of what the INT score means; as problematic in aspects as it is, INT is more so treated as objective of a character's abilities. All of your other examples are fine, but this one wouldn't be covered by INT.

However, you are right in that people do often assume someone who is primarily speaks a different language or has a different culture to the place they currently find themselves in are often treated as if they are 'dumb' or 'stupid'.

The thing is, the int score only “measures your reasoning and memory,” while intelligence checks are used “when you need to draw on logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning,” with the various skills under the umbrella of intelligence all “measure(ing) your ability to recall lore” about a particular subject and investigation being used for making logical deductions.

Basically, the only things Intelligence represents are the things it directly affects rolls to do. There’s no need to roleplay anything in particular based on your character’s intelligence, the rules of the game will insure that you succeed more or less often on intelligence related tasks as appropriate to your intelligence score.

If you want to roleplay traits typically associated with certain levels of intelligence, using them as personal characteristics like personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws, or simply making them roleplaying choices will help keep the focus on them being individual traits that aren’t directly related to a number that claims to represent the character’s level of intellectual capability.

 

[Charlaquin]

Snip

I don’t think this is a wise joke to make in a thread as heated as this.

 

[Charlaquin]

“Herbo”? I have never seen that word before. I’ve only seen people call such characters a himbo, regardless of gender.

Pretty sure himbo is derived from bimbo…