So, you have your character… some extremely talented wizard with maxed-out Intelligence. 18 or 19 is pretty high, right? And their name is… Grandalf (true story). You’re boppin along with your merry band of fellow adventurers when you come across a puzzle inside a dungeon. The gamemaster must have put a lot of effort into this thing because this puzzle looks particularly puzzling. Hieroglyphs, numbers, and weird color patterns. It’s not a trap, it’s a puzzle, and nobody can figure it out. Not even you, and you’re the smartest gamer you know.
The gamemaster looks at you and says, “You know, any wizard of even a 16 Intelligence can figure this out. If you as a player can’t do that, I’m going to have to lower your character’s Intelligence, or reward you with less experience this session. Perhaps you should play some other character, one that isn’t supposed to be so smart? Because you’re just not really playing to your character’s ability score.“
“But-but-but… of course I’m not as intelligent as my character; they have a 19 Intelligence! My character is practically Einstein. I should get a roll to figure this out, or maybe a clue!
“Sorry, this is a roleplaying game. Do you even know what that is?
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Gentle reader… if you find the above statement from the gamemaster to be true and fair, then this article is not for you. If you find it ridiculous, then read on (because I have a further point to make).
So, you find it ridiculous. Great! Now let me flip it…
Bob is playing Gronk, a 7 Intelligence fighter. Bob says, “I know, it’s a simple picto-puzzle. Just turn the hieroglyphs until they match the color patterns on this side. See?”
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I have heard of many gamemasters turning to Bob and saying something like, “Sorry, Bob, your character is too dumb to figure something like this out. You should play dumb.” I may have even done this decades ago, when I first started playing.
Do you see my point? It’s ridiculous to penalize a player because they can’t play as smart as their character actually is, so why should we penalize a player for not playing as dumb as their character seems on paper?
How intelligent is a high Intelligence? The difference between 10 and 19 is 9. That’s a big difference, but nobody ever berates a player for not playing like Einstein. How dumb is low Intelligence? The difference between 7 and 10 is a mere 3 points, but people are so quick to jump on such a player for devising a plan, or solving a puzzle.
At what point is a dumb fighter with a 7 Intelligence allowed to solve a puzzle without condemnation? Do they need an 8 in Intelligence? or a 9? Does it have to be a baseline 10, where there are no penalties to rolls?
On most character sheets, abilities typically provide modifiers that specifically affect ability rolls, skill rolls, and saving throws. The intelligent wizard tries to solve the puzzle and gets a bonus, while the not-so-intelligent fighter probably gets a penalty. That’s it. That’s all you need. Roleplay it however you want, but the roll is the mechanical effect only if needed. Our characters don’t gain experience on how well we interpret what a 12 Wisdom means, they gain experience from overcoming challenges and progressing the story.
Bob may play a 7 Intelligence fighter who is bad at math, or just can’t read. Kelly may play a 7 Intelligence fighter who is simply a bit forgetful. However, Mike may play a 7 Intelligence fighter just like himself… a normal dude who can’t seem to think straight when under pressure (taking the penalty of -2 on Intelligence-related rolls).
It just isn’t necessary to judge anyone on how “well” they play to their character’s mental stats, as everyone has their own interpretations… for their character.
So no, you’re not roleplaying wrong; there’s practically no wrong way in this regard.
Nobody goes to the table because they want to be judged on how well they roleplay their character’s ability scores; we go to the table for a shared and enjoyable gaming experience. Don’t try to change others; just continue to improve your own game and you’ll simply continue to have more and more fun.
Chris Stevens
In Chris's opinion, the very best vices are dirt bikes, rock music, and gaming, while the very best medicine is fatherhood. If he could just learn to balance them all, he'd live forever. He's much more creative than intelligent, often wakes up belligerent, and ponders many things insignificant. Lastly, in an effort to transform his well-fed body, P90X, Roller Blades, and Food are all laughing at him. And the pain continues.
Great article!
Thank you, sir. Long time no see!
Definitely agreed. A middle ground I’ve seen people suggest is for the PLAYER to suggest the solution, but have the smart character in the party figure it out in-character. I don’t think that’s the best solution, but if you’re dealing with an intractable GM or group, that’s another possibility.
But yes, a 7 or 8 is not exactly caveman intelligence. They probably wouldn’t do well in school, but they’re definitely smart enough to function normally.
I agree. For D&D/Pathfinder, the opposite of a 7 or 8 is a 13 or 14. But no one says anything when people play all the way up to 18, 19, or 20. So I say, just let it all go. Play the character as you like–let the ability score dictate how you play your character, or not… just have fun and let the modifiers do their job.
Great article. This is always a different balance. The fun is playing a character that is not yourself or a better version of yourself. It’s easy to know what being stronger or faster would do and role play it. However intelligence and wisdom are much harder to role play.
Agreed! A few years ago, I was the only player in the party able to solve a certain puzzle, mostly because I was the only one in the group who had taken Latin in high school. But it was a bit out of character for my 8 INT fighter. But my DM didn’t skip a beat. “Showing an unusual flash of insight or possibly inspiration from your god, you put the runes in the right order and the door pops open.”
In another campaign, I was playing an intelligent character but I personally couldn’t figure out a riddle. Rather than let the session stall, the DM allowed me to roll a check to get a hint. The higher the roll, the bigger the hint. It worked out pretty well.
Great article!
It’s a matter of context-balance, ultimately. In the case of an INT:18 character, the DM should (as a matter of course) have some pre-done notes/clues ready to occasionally (not always, by any means, but occasionally-as-appropriate) give the player of said character something to work with. (And, by giving it to the player who then can choose how to RP it, it puts the focus on the player/character vs the group just listening to the DM relate “x” as often occurs and is a mild form of flow-disruption for some groups.) For the INT:7, they generally wouldn’t/shouldn’t be coming up with “properly clever” ideas, nor likely understand *how* something technical works; however, as suggested in a further up post (though I disagree with Jacob’s assertion that it’s not the best idea), said *player* of the less-than-intelligent character can certainly make some suggestions to the group or specific player-of-a-smart character, which in turn helps bolster group dynamics a the table as well as preserve the in-character measured points of “he’s smart… the other one? — yeah, not so much…”, which *is* what the stats represent just as much as how strong a character is, or how healthy/resilient, etc…
I’ve found, though, over 4 decades of TTRPGing, that it’s much more often a player not curbing back their (I)ntelligence (and/or (W)isdom, and sometimes (C)harisma) relative to their low-stat’d character vs the higher stat’d character not being played “well enough”. The latter happens, true, but not nearly as often as the former. (At conventions and private games alike, I’ve seen countless DMs provide at least some occasional clues to players whose characters have high INT or WIS, in a similar vein as how a high STR character is understood to be able to perform physical feats — particularly in Super RPGS, where superhuman strength is, relative to some characters, a “common” occurrence — that the player isn’t at all capable of.)
What types of plans can a 7 Intelligence character come up with? What if their Intelligence was an 8? What’s the difference between 9 and 10? Can a 9 Intelligence character come up with a clever plan?
The difference between a 7 and a 10 is pretty small… so small that it only imposes a -2 penalty to checks. I don’t think a -2 penalty (which still allows for very possible skill roll successes) warrants them auto-failing every time they come up with a clever plan.
As usual, we need to find the middle point between rolling and roleing.
I’m going to hard disagree on this one because often character stats define character role. If you let someone dump int to 7 and charisma to 6 and still be the one that takes charge in the group when the puzzles come out, and be the party “face” when interacting with NPCs, well what niche does that leave at the table for someone else to do more than be this omni-capable paragon of heroes? Because, remember, he dumped int and cha hard, those stat points WENT someplace, probably someplace into a min/maxed combat build which means during combat… he takes center stage again. Or is the rest of the party just the sidekicks to this superhero?
Compare to a DM who enforces people not overplaying their stats in RP scenes and you get to say “hey, bob, look at your sheet, your sheet is telling you it’s someone else’s turn now.”
It’s also a good tool to get people, often inexperienced but sometimes very experienced but just not very skilled, out of their rut of playing “the same character with a different funny hat on” (I.e. the same basic personality with a few, usually overbroad and overplayed, quirks) for every character they have. If you let him say “oh I want to dump int to 8 on Bobert, my paladin, to get charisma 17 but I want to play him the same as Robert, my int 19 charisma 7 wizard, and when Bobert ends up on the plane of his deity, I shall play Sir Rob, my int 8, charisma 7 fighter the same exact way!” then you’re… well you’re not really roleplaying, you’re playing, but they have a role, and they’re not playing it. Stats define characters, define their toolkit, define their possibilities.
Note that I also take a somewhat broader than traditional view of character attributes– low stats don’t always look alike. A low-charisma character isn’t always quiet and surly, they might be overtalkative to the point of being annoying, or just have that kind of face that makes you distrust them, or the way they say things makes words that would be alright coming from other mouths come off wrong: their attempts to be clever are insulting, their attempts to be persuasive come off used-car-salesman slick and overly glib. Same with Int, low int doesn’t mean uneducated and stupid, it could mean “gets lost in the trees and can’t see the forest”, it could mean “literal-minded and little ability to problem-solve if the path isn’t obvious, even though they can do advanced math”, it could even mean “finds it hard to retain information long-term” (perhaps best suited for races where that might be appropriate or with a suitable backstory reason for it).