D&D General The History of 'Immersion' in RPGs

Lanefan · Feb 3, 2021

Mannahnin said:
Acting is not roleplaying. Acting can optionally be one of the components of roleplaying.

Other way round: roleplaying can optionally be one of the components of acting; though in the end they're pretty close to the same thing anyway.

Mannahnin said:
I have no way of knowing what Int score I would be assigned if I were hypothetically statted-up as a D&D character, and neither do you.

Acutally we do; in that one's Int score can be (and in 1e, was) vaguely defined as one's IQ divided by ten.

Got an IQ of 126? Divide that by ten plus rounding error gives you Int 13.

Guest 6801328 · Feb 3, 2021

Lanefan said:
Acutally we do; in that one's Int score can be (and in 1e, was) vaguely defined as one's IQ divided by ten.

Got an IQ of 126? Divide that by ten plus rounding error gives you Int 13.

So a 30 IQ equates to a -20% penalty on Intelligence related tests? I don’t think so.

But this the general D&D forum, not just 5e. Maybe that works out better in previous editions.

Lanefan · Feb 4, 2021

Elfcrusher said:
So a 30 IQ equates to a -20% penalty on Intelligence related tests? I don’t think so.

But this the general D&D forum, not just 5e. Maybe that works out better in previous editions.

Sure as hell worked out better when you had to roll under the stat on d20 to succeed on a check (a mechanic which should never ever have gone away IMO).

Maxperson · Feb 4, 2021

Elfcrusher said:
Spot on. Not only that, but while we can imagine pretty easily what it's like to not be able to lift a heavy box, I don't think it's actually possible to know what it feels like to be, say, 20% less intelligent than we actually are, and thus it's impossible to roleplay it.

Let's say you have an idea about how to overcome a problem. Is this something your 8 Int character would think of? How could you possibly know that. It's one thing to say, "An 8 Str character would not be able to lift a 250 pound rock." It's entirely different...and entirely subjective if not just factually wrong...to say, "It would never occur to an 8 Int character that those letters are an anagram for ASMODEUS."

As someone who expects his players to roleplay low stats, including low intelligence, this is how I handle it.

First, even dumb character can come up with good ideas now and then, so... I had a friend that I played with and DM'd for for many years. I'd give him an 8 or 9 int. Low average. He would arrive at conclusions I arrived at, but it would take him minutes to hours to come up with the solution that took me a few seconds to figure out. A lot of intelligence in my opinion is processing speed. People with slow processors often don't keep at it long enough to figure out and get frustrated.

Second, this is a game about players and players having fun. If the player of Thag the Limited came up with the solution to the Asmodeus anagram, I don't have a problem with him telling the player of Wile E. Coyote, super Artificer genius and letting that PC "come up" with the answer.

I leave it up to my players to figure it out and they do very well.

Hriston · Feb 4, 2021

Thomas Shey said:
And? Other types of characters already have the range of their attributes restrained by the game mechanics in a way that, outside of very limited context, social and intellect limited characters aren't.

What do you mean "And?"? I can't parse the rest of this, so I'm not sure why you feel that other types of characters are at such a disadvantage that low Intelligence and low Charisma characters need to have this added penalty you're imposing.

Thomas Shey said:
Then you do. But I think if one is going to use your whole mental facilities in decision making for characters who do not have the same facilities, you're actively behaving out of character, and if that's what's required to do the kind of immersion you feel necessary, I think its more honest to either play with systems that don't use an Intelligence stat, or make sure you only play ones where that stat is congruent with what you feel your own would be.

Being in or out of character makes no difference to my immersion. It's making my character's decisions, i.e. roleplaying. And there's nothing dishonest about it. Quit it with the accusations.

Thomas Shey · Feb 4, 2021

Hriston said:
Being in or out of character makes no difference to my immersion. It's making my character's decisions, i.e. roleplaying. And there's nothing dishonest about it. Quit it with the accusations.

I call them as I see them.

Guest 6801328 · Feb 4, 2021

Hriston said:
And there's nothing dishonest about it.

If anything, the dishonesty occurs as a result of the thought policing. The situations where I've seen the most dishonesty is with tables/DMs that try to enforce the player/character divide. Players end up trying to disguise motives, as if they just happened to guess the weakness of this particular monster.

Whereas when nobody polices what's in the player's head, nobody has an incentive to lie.

Player A: "Oh, this is an Ice Devil. Get out your silvered weapons."
DM: (Stares silently at back of DM screen in attempted poker face.)
Player B: "Uh....we may need a Plan B..."

Thomas Shey · Feb 4, 2021

Elfcrusher said:
If anything, the dishonesty occurs as a result of the thought policing. The situations where I've seen the most dishonesty is with tables/DMs that try to enforce the player/character divide. Players end up trying to disguise motives, as if they just happened to guess the weakness of this particular monster.

Whereas when nobody polices what's in the player's head, nobody has an incentive to lie.

Player A: "Oh, this is an Ice Devil. Get out your silvered weapons."
DM: (Stares silently at back of DM screen in attempted poker face.)
Player B: "Uh....we may need a Plan B..."

The dishonesty is calling what you're doing when you do that roleplaying. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with token or avatar play, but when you claim you're roleplaying while ignoring the established traits of the character, I call shenanigans.

Like I said, if you don't want to deal with mental and social traits that don't match up with your own, play a game that doesn't have them or where you can set them to suit yourself.

Guest 6801328 · Feb 4, 2021

Thomas Shey said:
The dishonesty is calling what you're doing when you do that roleplaying. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with token or avatar play, but when you claim you're roleplaying while ignoring the established traits of the character, I call shenanigans.

Like I said, if you don't want to deal with mental and social traits that don't match up with your own, play a game that doesn't have them or where you can set them to suit yourself.

Maybe we're playing different versions of D&D? In the version I play (5e) there is nothing that defines just how smart or dumb the various Int scores are. In fact, a really low Intelligence means that you are at most (with a score of 3) just 20% less likely than average to succeed on related tasks (in which the outcome is uncertain and there is a consequence to failure.) In other words, even with an Int of 3 the difference in outcomes is something that wouldn't be immediately obvious and would have to be observed statistically over multiple events.

Not exactly a drooling idiot.

That said, I love to lean into it...perhaps too much...and I'll ham up my low Int (or low Cha, or low Wis) characters for narrative effect, but the reality is that the difference between an attribute of 6 and an attribute of 14 is statistically significant but nowhere near the difference between, say, IQ's of 60 and 140. Not even in the same ballpark.

If you want to roleplay a low Int as sackful-of-hammers dumb go for it! That can be a lot of fun, and the game allows it. But if you want a game in which the low Int actually defines you as really dumb, maybe you're the one who should go play a game that suits your tastes.

Thomas Shey · Feb 4, 2021

Elfcrusher said:
Maybe we're playing different versions of D&D?

This may be a thread in the D&D general forum, but the point goes well beyond any incarnation of D&D.

And as I've said before, I'm not insisting that someone play an 8 INT character as an idiot; but if he's not even paying attention to the fact that his character has that 8 INT when making his decisions, he's not roleplaying him. He's using him as a vehicle to play himself, or, at best, playing a version of a character in his head that's disconnected to the one on paper.

D&D General The History of 'Immersion' in RPGs

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