What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

[Ruin Explorer]

I already told you that directly in my response to you in post #683!

I think you have a very narrow and slightly silly idea of what INT 8 means given you seem to think the only think Intelligence measures is how fast you come up with ideas.

It's also explicitly at odds with the definition of INT in 5E:

Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason.

An Intelligence check comes into play when you need to draw on logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning.

There's no reason an INT 8 character couldn't come up with ideas rapidly. You don't need accuracy of recall, ability to reason deductively, logic, or education to come up with ideas rapidly. Just because you met a guy you, perhaps unfairly, thought was "INT 8", and decided all characters who have INT 8 must be slow in the exact same way as him doesn't mean you're right to think that.

Someone who rapidly comes up with ill-conceived ideas which aren't reliant on careful reasoning or education (which may nevertheless be effective) could absolutely be INT 8 by D&D's definition of Intelligence (rather than your divergent definition).

I could see you claiming it was problematic RP if an INT 8 PC was constantly come up with elaborate deductive reasoning, referring to his character's successful and lengthy educational history, or having his PC perfectly recall facts, but even animals can think fast and come up with courses of action fast.

 

[Reynard]

Maybe some pop culture character benchmarks will help:
Int 6: The Hulk
Int 8: Kronk
Int 10: Buzz
Int 12: Woody
Int 14: Fox Mulder
Int 16: Peter Parker
Int 18: Bruce Wayne
Int 20: Lex Luthor

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, but that suggests a pretty one dimensional interpretation of "low int".

Also, people should definitely play with other people with whom they share certain preferences. But boy would I be put out if another player judged my roleplaying my character.

It's how D&D defines it.

"Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason." A low int is low in all of those, since intelligence measures all of them.

 

[Maxperson]

I think you have a very narrow and slightly silly idea of what INT 8 means given you seem to think the only think Intelligence measures is how fast you come up with ideas.

It's also explicitly at odds with the definition of INT in 5E:

No it's not. It explicitly says mental acuity.

There's no reason an INT 8 character couldn't come up with ideas rapidly. You don't need accuracy of recall, ability to reason deductively, logic, or education to come up with ideas rapidly. Just because you met a guy you, perhaps unfairly, thought was "INT 8", and decided all characters who have INT 8 must be slow in the exact same way as him doesn't mean you're right to think that.

No reason other than int in D&D explicitly measures thinking speed. Coming up constantly with quick, good ideas is playing against the low int score.

Someone who rapidly comes up with ill-conceived ideas which aren't reliant on careful reasoning or education (which may nevertheless be effective) could absolutely be INT 8 by D&D's definition of Intelligence (rather than your divergent definition).

And now you're altering what I am saying. We are discussing players playing themselves coming up with good ideas. That's the context of the discussion.

I could see you claiming it was problematic RP if an INT 8 PC was constantly come up with elaborate deductive reasoning, referring to his character's successful and lengthy educational history, or having his PC perfectly recall facts, but even animals can think fast and come up with courses of action fast.

This is what I am saying, yes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No it's not. It explicitly says mental acuity.

Yes it is. Mental acuity doesn't mean "how fast you come up with ideas", it's much, much broader and more vague term than that.

No reason other than int in D&D explicitly measures thinking speed. Coming up constantly with quick, good ideas is playing against the low int score.

No.

It just means it's not covered. D&D's six stats don't measure everything about a PC's capabilities, and thinking that they do is a big part of making a nuisance of yourself as a DM or player, frankly.

Coming up constantly with quick, good ideas is playing against the low int score.

What, exactly, is a "good idea". Define that.

Because animals can come up with "good ideas", man. Animals can process information incredibly fast, often far faster than a human. Does make them higher than INT 8? I don't think so.

A good idea which is relatively simple is not something that requires a high INT. This includes plans like sneaking around - again, stuff even animals are good at.

If the plan involves like, complex physics, or knowing exact detailed routes from a map, or memorizing a bunch of numbers or something, or analyzing complex speech or the like, sure, that's probably off but that's not a "good idea", that's a "complex idea", and often those sort of plans are absolutely terrible plans. Just complicatedly terrible.

This is what I am saying, yes.

What is it that you think deductive reasoning means? Because it's a specific mode of thought, and it's not one that's typically used by D&D players when forming plans, in my experience.

 

[saviirkad]

My main issue with dictating how to roleplay lower stats is that there's just so many wildly different ways to do so accurately that it ends up including roleplaying the stat as high.

I mean just to throw it out there, one way to roleplay an INT 8 low score is, frankly, to be smart. There's plenty of people we have all experienced in our lives who have full belief and confidence in their intelligence but their knowledge base is often so shallow on the subjects they claim to be experts in.

I mean think of the people who claim to have high IQs, saddling their merits to a pseudo science. They'll be confident, they'll be quick, they will come up with ideas and encourage others to the commit to their ideas.

Effectively, there's no difference between this player roleplaying an Int 18 or an Int 8 character. The mechanical penalty will show through that those ideas or assumptions may not be as good as the character thinks.

 

[Fenris-77]

When it negatively impacts everyone else in the game?

Well, you just added that. I think that someone failing to play low INT to your liking isn't affecting anyone but you, but I'm sure a circumstance can be imagines. Obviously I wasn't talking about behavior that negatively affects the whole table. Neither were you for that matter until just now when you added it to the discussion.

Sorry. You can get on board or find a game where it doesn't do that. 5 people don't have to suffer through bad roleplay just because you want to ignore your low stat. There are a lot of folks out there and we can all be happy by you playing at another table.

If a player comes to a game that I'm running and refuses to roleplay their stat, they have 3 options. 1) change and roleplay the stat, 2) make a new character with a low int, 3) go to a new table where they will fit in better. Not that any of those will ever be a concern, because as I said, a low int has to be chosen at my table. The way we roll stats makes the odds of a low int very unlikely.

Did you read the part of my post my post where said the one decision we do get to make is who to play with? If you had I suspect you wouldn't have bothered to essentially repeat what I've already said. Some players are bad fits for some groups, it's a fact of RPG life, and at no point was I suggesting that it should be ignored. I will mention again that this wasn't any part of the conversation until right now. There is a pretty significant moving of goal posts going on. Your posts and my replies previous to this have nothing to do with this new element you've added.

Public service announcement - we are now talking about bad behavior that affects the whole table, and not how someone feels about that dude who doesn't quite nail his low INT score.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Maybe some pop culture character benchmarks will help:
Int 6: The Hulk
Int 8: Kronk
Int 10: Buzz
Int 12: Woody
Int 14: Fox Mulder
Int 16: Peter Parker
Int 18: Bruce Wayne
Int 20: Lex Luthor

I am unconvinced Woody is smarter than Buzz. He is clearly much more sensible, grounded and capable of understanding reality than Buzz, but that's a matter of WIS in D&D!

This is definitely the main point of your entirely serious post and we should debate that and "Who is smarter, Bruce Wayne or Lex Luthor" in great detail. I am very smart.

Also this is worthless when we didn't include Scully as at least one INT higher than Fox! This is Scully erasure!

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think the idea that human intelligence can be fully and accurately represented by a single number is very silly, and so any demand or expectation that any character with such a score behave in a specific way is equally silly.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, you just added that. I think that someone failing to play low INT to your liking isn't affecting anyone but you, but I'm sure a circumstance can be imagines. Obviously I wasn't talking about behavior that negatively affects the whole table. Neither were you for that matter until just now when you added it to the discussion.

It was in post #683 at the bottom and while it was not a response directly to you, it is a part of my position on the topic we are discussing. This is a relatively public thread and all of my responses in it are included in my position. It was not just added.