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

[Vaalingrade]

So, I'd pose the same question to you. How would you feel about a player coming to your table playing a character who is a purposeful real world racial stereotype?

I would eject them from the game so fast they experience red shift.

I don't put up with that sort of garbage or any attempt to excuse it.

 

[reelo]

Mod Note:

Sarcasm is fine and all, but how about we refrain from using rhetorical dog whistles like “participation trophies”?

I wasn't aware that expression was considered a "dog whistle" !? Who is it supposed to "alert"? The intention on my behalf was merely to point out that life—real or fantasy—is inherently not fair, and that the sanest approach was to acknowledge that.

 

[jasper]

Ha! Stupid people don't know the meaning of the word!

xenophobe Oh Oh Oh MR. Kotter. Mr. Kotter
xenophobe fear of the musical instrument Xylophone

 

[Faolyn]

The first part of your statement is why I made the comment I made a few posts ago.

The lines being drawn between what the game is really teaching someone to do has, in the past, varied depending upon the argument being made.

Taking that further, my next question would be: how interactive does a play experience need to be before it is considered real?

Easy: You'd need to actually assault or kill someone before a play experience is considered real.

Or, as an example: In a recent session of my game, they encountered a BBEG who--according to my notes--was going to flee if reduced to half hp or below. Welp, apparently hexblades can do a metric ton of damage on a critical smite and so the BBEG left pretty quickly, leaving his expendable guards to their squishy deaths at the PCs' hands. And so the party--especially the hexblade--has decided that this BBEG is a coward and are making fun of him for it, calling him a pathetic coward and the like. Just wait until he returns. <evil DM laughter>

This is in-game mockery. This is making fun of a specific individual for a specific perceived trait that the BBEG demonstrated.

But this thread is about making fun of a group of of real world people for an inborn trait. It's not about people who are saying, "How many times have we told you not to touch everything you see, you numbskull?!" to the party's rogue. It's about people who are acting in a stereotype of "stupid" people because it's either funny to them or they think it's how "stupid" people act. It would be like playing a gay character by lisping.

That's a question which leads into how other entertainment media (books, movies, video games, VR, and etc) are sometimes critiqued against real-world violence or whatever a particular critic feels is morally wrong behavior.

I don't see how "don't be a dick" is the same as "these games cause mass shootings!"

 

[Faolyn]

How would you compare this to identifying an 8 str score as weak, 8 dex as clumsy, 8 con as sickly, 8 wis as oblivious, or 8 cha as weak willed? Where is it permitted to play a particular character with flaws?
I understand the desire not to marginalize anyone, but portraying a RPG character as consistent with their ability scores doesn't really seem particularly callous.

Sigh.

Are you playing a weak, clumsy, sickly, oblivious, or weak-willed to make fun of real people like this?

Because we're not talking about saying "Hah, Bob, you've got no muscles!" Or even "My barbarian scoffs at these weaklings!" We're talking about people who are playing low-Strength characters to make fun of low-Strength characters.

 

[Faolyn]

I hear what you are saying. So we should think about this:

By that standard, when a goliath mocks the halfling for being short, that should be avoided too. I feel certain in real life, short people have had to deal with comments like that before. They, most likely, did not find them funny.

Just a thought.

Is the goliath making fun of the short halfling, or is the goliath's player making fun of short people?

 

[Charlaquin]

I hear what you are saying. So we should think about this:

By that standard, when a goliath mocks the halfling for being short, that should be avoided too. I feel certain in real life, short people have had to deal with comments like that before. They, most likely, did not find them funny.

Just a thought.

Yeah, I think that is something that should probably be avoided too, unless you know for sure that everyone at the table is ok with it.

 

[Charlaquin]

That would be a whole other can of worms, but as I'm neither short or disabled, I'm in no place to say if it's the same. What I can say is that for me, being made fun for being fat or for being bi are really different, even if both suck.

I’m smack-dab average height, but my family on my dad’s side tends very short. My dad hates Disney films because he has noticed the short characters are always getting pushed around by tall characters. He also plays D&D I’m pretty confident he would not appreciate height-based jokes being made in game, in-character or otherwise.

 

[the Jester]

Is the goliath making fun of the short halfling, or is the goliath's player making fun of short people?

I find it interesting that nobody is asking this about the person playing a "stupid" character (whatever that means, since it hasn't really been defined except as not being linked to the character's Intelligence score).

I've skipped a bunch of this thread- only really skimmed- so I may have missed this part of the discussion, though.

 

[Faolyn]

I find it interesting that nobody is asking this about the person playing a "stupid" character (whatever that means, since it hasn't really been defined except as not being linked to the character's Intelligence score).

I've skipped a bunch of this thread- only really skimmed- so I may have missed this part of the discussion, though.

Well, we've asked ad_hoc to elaborate but he hasn't, to my knowledge..

But I, at least, have been talking about playing mean and insulting stereotypes.