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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6843600" data-attributes="member: 42582">Sure. Moldvay Basic has similar rules relating INT to languages. Low-INT PCs are illiterate, and very low INT PCs have some difficulty with spoken words also.This is something that I canvassed a long way upthread, when I raised the issue of INT as a constraint on permissible action declaration. It puts the burden on the GM to frame the fictional situation in mechanical terms, just as is the case with your STR and weight/encumbrance examples, while leaving the player free to play his/her PC.Not too far upthread I pointed to a passage on p 10 of Men & Magic (volume 1 of the original D&D), which says that "Intelligence will . . . affect the referees' decisions as to whether or not certain action would be taken . . ." It's not fully clear what this means. Maybe it means that the referee will refer to the INT of a monster or NPC in deciding whether or not it takes a certain action (and this is something that is also emphasised in Gygax's DMG). Or maybe it means that the GM will have regard to a PC's INT in deciding whether it is permissible to frame certain action declarations - which would be the same as what you are suggesting.I think these examples from earlier editions are quite relevant to thinking about the role of the INT stat as a constraint on play via action declaration - which, by putting the burden on the GM (where I think it belongs, at least in the context of D&D) rather than on the player to be a "good roleplayer", facilitates rather than constrains the player in playing his/her PC.</blockquote>

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