How do you play low Intelligence and Wisdom?

[calithena]

For me, they mean

(a) I don't give the player very many hints in terms of (a) knowledge and (b) perception. Characters with average-to-high Int and Wis tend to receive answers to requests about 'do I know this' or benefit-of-the-doubt rolls to perceive things when the player slips up, etc. Characters with low Int or Wis don't get these things; the player is much more on his/her own.

(b) The player should probably not roleplay a low Int character as a real genius (though if it's even in the 7-8 range a big vocabulary is fine) or a low Wis character as patient, understanding, thoughtful, and perceptive. But bursts of either of these things in critical moments in play are fine: even the dimmest bulb sometimes shines brightly when it matters.

For me, what they don't mean are:

- you have to act dumb

- you can't take a leadership role

- you have to talk like a lout (this can be fun if you want it for your character, but there are plenty of Int 5 people in the real world who speak and write just fine)

- you can't have good tactical or strategic ideas for how your character deals with situations

In other words, I don't view low Int and Wis as putting anything other than very minimal constraints on the PLAYER using his or her real world intelligence and wisdom to choose actions that benefit his or her character.

How do other people feel about this issue?

[philotomy]

I take the same approach as you.

[Finarvyn]

As a person with low intelligence and low wisdom, I just try to be myself. :-P

Actually, some of my players try to play low INT or low WIS characters by being more passive in the group. (Actually, they do this with low CHA characters as well.) They tell me that sometimes if they have a clever idea they supress it because their character wouldn't have come up with that idea. I think that if the player restricts himself or herself it's fine, but I hate to have the DM place the restrictions.

On the other hand, having players make an INT check (to see if their character comes up with a clever idea) can be fun, particlularly if the reverse is true and you give them an INT check for a hint when they get stuck.

Sometimes, playing characters with higher INT, WIS, or CHA stats than the players is the tricky one. A shy or abrasive person may find it hard to be a high CHA character, or a player who isn't very clever might have problems with high-INT scheming and master plans and the like.

[coffee]

I read somewhere that Robert E. Howard intentionally created his characters on the lower end of the intelligence scale. That made them easier to write.

I have to agree. It's easier and it's more fun.

I remember one game I ran once (not D&D but it doesn't matter). We had all created characters, but the following week, one player wasn't there (he couldn't deal with the smokers, including our hostess, so he dropped out.) But his character was there.

Typical strong, dumb fighter, except really dumb. I had the best time running him as an NPC!

Everybody liked him, because he really was just a big dumb kid (with a big, dumb sword). He just had trouble with abstract concepts. I hammed it up, too (as an example to the players of how roleplaying could work). I furrowed my brow and started to sweat when he was trying to grasp something -- and then, in similar situations, he would confidently adopt the same approach, not minding that the circumstances were different enough that it would get the whole party in trouble!

I think my players loved it as much as I did; at least, I got some really good comments about how that one dumb character helped make the whole campaign come alive.

[Finarvyn]

Good post, coffee!

Sometimes people get so hung up in the game that they forget to have fun. Not to say that games need to be slapstick or that the game can't be the most important, but sometimes getting hammed up makes the whole experience that much better. That's why I enjoy trying out strange accents and the like -- I'm probably not good at them but I enjoy doing them.

[doc]

I'm playing a character right now with an INT of 8 and a WIS of 7. He is VERY impulsive, barging right into rooms without checking for traps, disregarding group plans to instead just run right at the foe and smashing it, trying out magic items before they have been identified, wandering off during group meetings, etc. That displays the low WIS. His INT of 8 (which isn't TOO bad) is displayed by his unworldliness. He has never met an elf and assumes the one he met is a human with a genetic defect. He has a hard time realizing that hobbits aren't human children. He chews with his mouth open and cannot read to himself but must do it aloud.

Basically he is a dumb hick fresh off the farm, and I enjoy playing him that way.



Doc

[korgoth]

I'm pretty flexible on this issue. In a current Classic game, I'm playing a strong (18), smart (14 or 15) Northman fighter as a monosyllabic Arhnuld type... who occasionally trots out a big word or a clever plan. Likewise, my somewhat dim cleric is just really opinionated and narrow-minded.

As far as I'm concerned, a low Int could be possessed by a "smart" character, even a sage. After all, it could just mean an extremely poor memory or laziness. A guy who knows everything there is to know about chemical reactions could still be lazy, absent-minded, etc. Even dumb humans can be prodigies in their particular field, given the amazing capacities of the human mind and brain.

I would say that a low Wis could be found in a patient but detached person, an empathetic but impulsive person, an observant but shallow person, etc.

For me, role playing even one note of the low score is enough to justify it. I'd rather just consider the score to be there for game purposes, and let the player play the character how he likes. Clearly a low Int, for example, represents an impediment of some kind. But whether it means he's actually a dolt, or just absent-minded, forgetful, distracted, depressed, knowledgeable but illogical, etc. is up to the player.

[doc]

To quote Tom Hanks:

"Stupid is as stupid does."


Doc

[dwayanu]

I go with Korgoth's take, which I think is echoed by Gygax in the AD&D books. A low score doesn't necessarily indicate weakness in all aspects, and a very low score could reflect an exceptional handicap in a limited area.

[evreaux not logged in]

Well, I play a slightly different edition, but with that said, I play such characters as not being very good at writing Common (and certainly not speaking any other languages) and not getting any bonuses on saves versus will-based magic attacks.

;-)

[tgamemaster1975]

Great stuff everyone. One of the other things that I do, is take characters from things that I have watched and incorporate some of what they do into my character. As a few examples: Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show. He had a heart of gold but oh did he mess up all the time, not to bright but almost always trying to do the right thing, or be the hero, except when he realized he made a mistake and was trying to hid it. Playing a low Int and low Wis D&D character like Barney Fife is a hoot. Another good one is Gomer Pyle, another heart of gold, but a few bricks shy of a full load. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, old TV and Old movies are a great source of inspiration in playing all kinds of character from a 3 to an 18 you can see great examples. Just my 2 coppers.

[Deleted]

I take pretty much the same approach as both calithena & philotomy when it comes to portraying a character at the lower spectrum of the scale. On the opposite side of the coin, I find playing a character with exceptional attributes tends to be more of a challenge for me. ;D

[Deleted]

Good post, Tgamemaster1975! The missus & I just re-watched the Vacation series (all 4 of them) last night. Clark Griswald is perfect for the lower end of the Wisdom scale, where Cousin Eddie is great for the lower Intelligence end ("Don't mind the dog, Clark..."). ;D

[crimhthanthegreat]

I agree that the most challenging is playing the high attribute scores especially Int, Wis and Cha. I think there are plenty of roll models for playing the low end, but for the high end there are fewer great examples. Most of us will go our entire lives and never meet anyone that has a RL 18 in Int or Wis and probably not for Cha either although we may see the Cha displayed in the media occasionally.

[Finarvyn]

Another thing I like to do is to tie "perception" into Wisdom.

If one stretches the "wisdom is the way you interact with the world around you" model, it's not too hard to imagine that a low wisdom person might be more absent minded and/or not really pay attention to details. When my players use wisdom as a "dump stat" I start making them make perception checks for things they should observe/taste/smell/etc.

[serendipity]

I can see that the fun would be when a person who is not particularly wise played a character with high WIS. When the player made a decision which the character wouldn't, the DM could just roll vs WIS to see if the PC changed his mind before acting, but I prefer the idea that the DM might inject a bit more information instead. "As you reach to open the chest, you recall a time in the past when a chest just like this one caused an electric shock when it was opened." This allows the player to select the appropriate action instead of having a re-do if he made the WIS check.

[Finarvyn]

Yeah, the tricky thing is to make certain that the DM doesn't become a puppeteer. "Oh, sure you think you want to open the chest, but..." (rolls dice) "...sorry, you decide to drink the slime-green colored potion instead."

While the above is clearly an absurd example, subtle die-rolls on the part of the DM tend to undermine the player's ability to play a role. One would want to be careful before taking free will away from players, and instead should focus on how to get them to think about their character's actions and how to make them fit the persona imagined instead.

[crimhthanthegreat]

As our players are learning we do what was mentioned above and that is steer them to real world examples of what they are trying to portray. It is really very helpful in playing it right and it teaches you to really observe and listen to the people you interact with everyday. As people behave in wise and unwise, intelligent and unintelligent ways it all becomes fodder for the game.

[dicebro]

I don’t equate the int score with IQ.  ALL Characters are competent. Some just speak more languages and have an aptitude for magic. The rest don’t. A 3 is the same as a 9 in my campaign. So nobody has to worry about playing foolish or dumb.

[Desparil]

Sept 15, 2019 19:22:03 GMT -6 dicebro said:

I don’t equate the int score with IQ.  ALL Characters are competent. Some just speak more languages and have an aptitude for magic. The rest don’t. A 3 is the same as a 9 in my campaign. So nobody has to worry about playing foolish or dumb.

Even if you do equate it to IQ, as a thought experiment you could take the probability percentiles on 3d6 and map them onto the N(100, 15) normal curve for IQ and come up with very game-able results.

You'd find that anything from 8 to 13 is in the average range.
A 6 or 7 would be below average, but in the range where it's not very noticeable except when making complex decisions, weighing long-term costs and benefits, or solving symbolic math or logic problems.
A 5 or 6 would be borderline (the 6 straddles the edge of 'below average' and 'borderline'), indicating difficulty dealing with paperwork and managing personal finances, for example - but I'll also note that many of these types of tasks would be greatly diminished in complexity or nonexistent in a medieval setting.
Only a 3 or 4 would reach the medical threshold of mild intellectual disability, and even then IQ is only one of the factors that goes into a formal diagnosis of mental disability so it's possible to be in this range and still only be considered borderline.
A character like Lennie from Of Mice and Men would be as rare as the character with 18/00 extraordinary strength - and even Lennie was capable enough to speak coherently, work as a farmhand, and defend himself when the farm boss's son tried to punch him.

[dicebro]

Sept 15, 2019 20:29:36 GMT -6 Desparil said:

Sept 15, 2019 19:22:03 GMT -6 dicebro said:

I don’t equate the int score with IQ.  ALL Characters are competent. Some just speak more languages and have an aptitude for magic. The rest don’t. A 3 is the same as a 9 in my campaign. So nobody has to worry about playing foolish or dumb.

Even if you do equate it to IQ, as a thought experiment you could take the probability percentiles on 3d6 and map them onto the N(100, 15) normal curve for IQ and come up with very game-able results.

You'd find that anything from 8 to 13 is in the average range.
A 6 or 7 would be below average, but in the range where it's not very noticeable except when making complex decisions, weighing long-term costs and benefits, or solving symbolic math or logic problems.
A 5 or 6 would be borderline (the 6 straddles the edge of 'below average' and 'borderline'), indicating difficulty dealing with paperwork and managing personal finances, for example - but I'll also note that many of these types of tasks would be greatly diminished in complexity or nonexistent in a medieval setting.
Only a 3 or 4 would reach the medical threshold of mild intellectual disability, and even then IQ is only one of the factors that goes into a formal diagnosis of mental disability so it's possible to be in this range and still only be considered borderline.
A character like Lennie from Of Mice and Men would be as rare as the character with 18/00 extraordinary strength - and even Lennie was capable enough to speak coherently, work as a farmhand, and defend himself when the farm boss's son tried to punch him.

Yeah, but thinking about that stuff takes time away from actual gaming.  In my campaigns, “intelligence” is only reflective of your ability to speak additional languages, and for magic users to gain experience bonuses. Simple. No worries about “role playing” like a moron because an int of 3 means nothing.

[Desparil]

Sept 16, 2019 17:12:48 GMT -6 dicebro said:

Sept 15, 2019 20:29:36 GMT -6 Desparil said:

Even if you do equate it to IQ, as a thought experiment you could take the probability percentiles on 3d6 and map them onto the N(100, 15) normal curve for IQ and come up with very game-able results.

You'd find that anything from 8 to 13 is in the average range.
A 6 or 7 would be below average, but in the range where it's not very noticeable except when making complex decisions, weighing long-term costs and benefits, or solving symbolic math or logic problems.
A 5 or 6 would be borderline (the 6 straddles the edge of 'below average' and 'borderline'), indicating difficulty dealing with paperwork and managing personal finances, for example - but I'll also note that many of these types of tasks would be greatly diminished in complexity or nonexistent in a medieval setting.
Only a 3 or 4 would reach the medical threshold of mild intellectual disability, and even then IQ is only one of the factors that goes into a formal diagnosis of mental disability so it's possible to be in this range and still only be considered borderline.
A character like Lennie from Of Mice and Men would be as rare as the character with 18/00 extraordinary strength - and even Lennie was capable enough to speak coherently, work as a farmhand, and defend himself when the farm boss's son tried to punch him.

Yeah, but thinking about that stuff takes time away from actual gaming.  In my campaigns, “intelligence” is only reflective of your ability to speak additional languages, and for magic users to gain experience bonuses. Simple. No worries about “role playing” like a moron because an int of 3 means nothing.

I've found that some people want to roleplay a dumb character, and will take even a 7 as an excuse to do so. But my point with the above percentiles was that even a 3 doesn't mean you have to be a mental patient, and in any case I've never seen anyone actually roll a 3 for an ability score in 20 years. Lowest I've seen was a 5 and he stuck it into charisma, though that later dropped to a 3 after his character contracted a rotting disease.

[Deleted]

I go the other way on this one. Low scores are as good as any other factor, which with attention and skill, can bring a convincing adventurer to the game table, IMO.

[dicebro]

Very interesting, Desparil.  I wonder why anyone would want to role play a moron in an expedition.

[Desparil]

Sept 16, 2019 17:34:41 GMT -6 dicebro said:

Very interesting, Desparil.  I wonder why anyone would want to role play a moron in an expedition.

You keep coming up with "moron" when I gave all kinds of reasons why a low score, even when equated to IQ, does not mean "moron"

[Starbeard]

I exert no opinion on the matter, because players will almost certainly already have their own thoughts on what a low or high mental statistic means for their characters. If they wish to treat low scores as a requirement to act against their better judgment, that's fine. It rarely has a tangible effect, since everyone usually tosses ideas back and forth freely until an action is decided upon, and if the idiot character's player came up with the good idea, then it's just tacitly presumed that it was actually one of the smart characters who came up with the idea and related it to the idiot.

I will however test mental scores where they provide a mechanical effect, say acceptance to a university or chance to learn a spell if we're playing with those rules. This also includes tasks that simply cannot be puzzled out by the players themselves, just like I'll test strength for things that the players can't use their own strength to solve.

For example (a bit on the nose here, but this is just for illustration):

'There's an iron gate blocking the passage.'

'I lift it.'

'(rolls) you lift the gate. Beyond is a door with a riddle carved into the stone jambs.'

'What's it say?'

'I don't know, some riddle about passageways, I didn't have time to come up with one specifically. It says that if you speak the correct answer the door will open, but opening the door without solving the riddle will spell doom.'

'I study the riddle for a turn to see if I can figure it out.'

'(rolls) unfortunately you can't figure it out. You'll need to head back to town and find someone else to try.'

[Vile Traveller]

It's up to my players, not me. I'm happy to let them role-play their heart out or just treat it as a mechanical device, whatever floats their boat. My primary reason for using ability scores at all is to give players and me a mental framework for their characters, especially in games like OD&D and Holmes. If players want to develop their characters from that starting point it's up to them. In skill-based games like BRP characteristics (as they call them) can be made completely redundant.

A common reason for some players wanting to run "dumb" or unwise, or uncharismatic characters is that they are simply easier - you don't expect them to do the tricky stuff like solving riddles, working out complicated trap mechanisms, or persuading a mob to overhtrow their liege lord. And if players like doing that stuff, I'm not going to let a low score ruin their fun.

[dicebro]

Sept 16, 2019 20:24:00 GMT -6 Desparil said:

Sept 16, 2019 17:34:41 GMT -6 dicebro said:

Very interesting, Desparil.  I wonder why anyone would want to role play a moron in an expedition.

You keep coming up with "moron" when I gave all kinds of reasons why a low score, even when equated to IQ, does not mean "moron"

I’m sorry, I meant to ask why someone would want to role play a dumb character.  It doesn’t make sense to me, honestly. 

[dicebro]

Sept 17, 2019 2:27:38 GMT -6 Vile Traveller said:

It's up to my players, not me. I'm happy to let them role-play their heart out or just treat it as a mechanical device, whatever floats their boat. My primary reason for using ability scores at all is to give players and me a mental framework for their characters, especially in games like OD&D and Holmes. If players want to develop their characters from that starting point it's up to them. In skill-based games like BRP characteristics (as they call them) can be made completely redundant.

A common reason for some players wanting to run "dumb" or unwise, or uncharismatic characters is that they are simply easier - you don't expect them to do the tricky stuff like solving riddles, working out complicated trap mechanisms, or persuading a mob to overhtrow their liege lord. And if players like doing that stuff, I'm not going to let a low score ruin their fun.

Interesting. Question: would you, as the judge, let a player with a low int score play smart? Or would you say, “no your character wouldn’t be able to think that because his intelligence is a 6.”  I would have problems with a ref that did that to me.

[DungeonDevil]

Rush into situations of extreme peril without thought.
Talk loudly when the party is trying to be stealthy.
Always argue with party-members needlessly.
Ignore traps.
Moon hungry dragons.