How do you play characters dumber than yourself?

[WarKitty]

I don't mean the really dumb I-have-3-intelligence type. I mean your academically inclined honors student trying to play an intelligence 9 character. Somehow I'm having trouble figuring out how to play someone that doesn't think of everything off the bat without making them really stupid.

apologies if the post sounds too much like bragging

[DemLep]

Unless your in some special school or shut off from the rest of the world. Just think of the average person around. 9 int is average/slightly below average. You know stuff, but not everything. You can be rational, but probably not as a default.

[WarKitty]

Unless your in some special school or shut off from the rest of the world. Just think of the average person around. 9 int is average/slightly below average. You know stuff, but not everything. You can be rational, but probably not as a default.

Heh. The trouble is I over-plan as a rule in RL. Seriously it doesn't shut off. I know roughly what it would be, but I'm not entirely sure how to approach a problem without the I-have-14-plans-to-deal-with-this that's my normal approach.

[DemLep]

A C student is a 9 (about). You can plan ahead, but don't over do it. Remember you're not going to think of everything.

What are the rest of your stats? I characters action based on one stat are kind of hard to show.

[Snake-Aes]

Don't plan too much. Try to come up with decisions in the timespan of a round or two instead of while everyone else is acting. When you see something ingeniously clever, hand it over to the guy with more int.

[WarKitty]

A C student is a 9 (about). You can plan ahead, but don't over do it. Remember you're not going to think of everything.

What are the rest of your stats? I characters action based on one stat are kind of hard to show.

High wisdom (23) due to racial bonuses. Most eveything else is in the average range (9-11) except strength which is a 5. Playing a druid (bonus cookie to whoever can guess my race!).

[Greenish]

I play with pointbuy, so I've never had to play a character dumper than I am.

[Edit]: You're a cunning anthropomorphic bat.

[WarKitty]

I play with pointbuy, so I've never had to play a character dumper than I am.

You haven't had to play with more dump stats than you have in RL?

[Kylarra]

Just stop thinking of new plans after the first one and refine it rather than going into contingencies.

[Tengu_temp]

High wisdom (23) due to racial bonuses. Most eveything else is in the average range (9-11) except strength which is a 5. Playing a druid (bonus cookie to whoever can guess my race!).

Anthropomorphic Bat?

Anyway, for high wisdom but low intelligence, you think slow, but have a lot of simple, down-to-earth wisdom. You won't come up with a brilliant plan on your own, unless you have a lot of time to think about it, but you can judge whether the plan of your teammates is good or not.

[DemLep]

Wow. Okay I'd say Snake-Aes was the right idea.

Thank being said with your ridiculously high wisdom, compared to the rest of your stats, your going to probably pick up on things. You just won't know what to do with them, or you'll be ably to use what you do know exetremely well, but when it comes to picking up new things you'll have a hard time.

You'll probably lean on your wisdom, maybe to much. You'll act on instinct because your instinct is almost always right, but you won't think ahead to often. You'll know what to do when you need to do it. Or something along that line.

That's how I would play the character, take what you want from it. Other might have other good view points as well.

[Snake-Aes]

Anthropomorphic Bat?

Anyway, for high wisdom but low intelligence, you think slow, but have a lot of simple, down-to-earth wisdom. You won't come up with a brilliant plan on your own, unless you have a lot of time to think about it, but you can judge whether the plan of your teammates is good or not.

More importantly, it'll be able to adapt on-the-fly extremely well, but it won't come up with creative ways of using the environment on its own often.

[WarKitty]

Anthropomorphic Bat?

Anyway, for high wisdom but low intelligence, you think slow, but have a lot of simple, down-to-earth wisdom. You won't come up with a brilliant plan on your own, unless you have a lot of time to think about it, but you can judge whether the plan of your teammates is good or not.

Have a virtual cookie. I couldn't resist a bit of optimizing on this one.

[Psyx]

If your wisdom is high then don't participate in planning: Naysay.

Keep quiet, let the plans trickle in, and then point out the obvious holes in plans, from a common sense (rather than higher learning) perspective.

[Telonius]

23 Wis, 9 Int... As a poker player, he doesn't know any of the odds. But he has a great knack for telling how confident the other players are in their hands. This guy is the person who has great gut instincts, but isn't terribly good at proving their points in debate. "Don't bother me with the numbers, it's just not gonna happen." He's not dumb by any means, and very rarely is he taken in by a con. With that 23 Wis, he knows his own limits, and is not afraid to ask trusted experts for advice.

EDIT: When critiquing, critique in a more general way. "That seems a little complicated," rather than, "For that to work, these different things (list them), each with a 50% possibility of failure, will have to happen. We can't guarantee it; this is just too risky."

[HunterOfJello]

How do you play characters dumber than yourself?

I would think the reverse would be more difficult.

[Snake-Aes]

I would think the reverse would be more difficult.

Both can me emulated to a certain level. Quick-thinking is characteristic of intelligence so smarter characters should let the players muse on their round's worth of actions some more than dumber characters.

[WarKitty]

I would think the reverse would be more difficult.

Ironically I find characters with lower stats to be challenging to play properly. I could role-play someone smarter than I am by a combination of metagaming and simply taking more time than the character has. Someone with lower stats is hard because you have to figure what they *wouldn't* think of without making them a complete idiot.

[hamishspence]

In Star Trek- Mirror Mirror- Spock points out that it is fairly easy to masquerade as someone more barbaric than yourself, but much harder to masquerade as someone more civilized.

Maybe it's a bit like that for how to play a dumb character when you're unusually smart- all you need to do is "dumb down" a bit.

[Snake-Aes]

Ironically I find characters with lower stats to be challenging to play properly. I could role-play someone smarter than I am by a combination of metagaming and simply taking more time than the character has. Someone with lower stats is hard because you have to figure what they *wouldn't* think of without making them a complete idiot.

I don't play dumb characters. I just can't stand not being able to come up with clever ideas without turning all of them into epiphanies.

[DemLep]

I would think the reverse would be more difficult.

Some people are too smart to be able to think like some one less smart then themselves. No insult intended, but they probably spend to much over-thinking things from a narrow, not necessarily limited, view point. Because they lack the knowledge of how people look at things who are of less intelligence they do not know how to act as they would. That being said let me say again, I mean nothing against warkitty or people of this mind set. It is solely an observation of mine on how such a problem may come about. Okay now you can start yelling at me for whatever reason you can get out of that.

[WarKitty]

Some people are too smart to be able to think like some one less smart then themselves. No insult intended, but they probably spend to much over-thinking things from a narrow, not necessarily limited, view point. Because they lack the knowledge of how people look at things who are of less intelligence they do not know how to act as they would. That being said let me say again, I mean nothing against warkitty or people of this mind set. It is solely an observation of mine on how such a problem may come about. Okay now you can start yelling at me for whatever reason you can get out of that.

I like you. Did I mention my RL wisdom score sucks? No sense motive at all.

[DemLep]

I like you. Did I mention my RL wisdom score sucks? No sense motive at all.

Thanks. Probably what's working in my favor.

[Earthwalker]

In your character background give yourself some simple flaws. Not the I take this flaw for a free feat flaws. I mean just odd ways of acting and thinking. Things like

Thinks Rogues are the best class.
Hates all lizards and lizardmen.
Thinks Fire is the best damage type.

And so on, you can add to this as you go.

Now when you get into a tactical situation go thru your list and work out what to do. If the Rogue in the group is getting attacked defend the rogue, if lizards are there then attack the lizards first. Always open up with fire spells even if its not the best tactic.
Make as many of these as you like, you can develop more as you go along.
Now spend your time thinking about why your character believes these things and still acts on them (to use up your processing power so you can keep it simple)
After so long of doing this, like giving up a tactical advantage to protect the rogue your group are going to think you have low int.

[valadil]

Make it psychological. Figure out how your character is unintelligent. Then figure out how he reacts to that. How does your character feel when he doesn't get something? How does he feel when other people imply that his plans suck? How does he feel when they talk down to him? Does he try and overcompensate for his unintelligence?

Basically you should get so wrapped up in the psychology of your character that you don't have time to think about planning.

[Oracle_Hunter]

The RP advice given thus far has been pretty solid, but I think it needs to be said that you shouldn't be trying to play off of "intelligence" at all. Instead, come up with a persona who does things in a "less smart" fashion and go with it.

Let's say you consider yourself highly intelligent and like to plan out every little detail. Fine; when you're playing a "less intelligent" character, do the opposite. Don't sweat the small stuff; don't plan out every details; don't spend all your time asking questions about ancillary issues. You can do this with any mental stat.

EXAMPLE

Spoiler

Show

I may not consider myself to have a very high WIS but I am currently playing a low WIS, high INT barbarian. Since I am trying to play a low WIS character, I consider what I'd think a high WIS character would do - and I do the opposite. If deliberations have been going on for awhile, or a NPC is giving us the run-around, I interrupt and speak bluntly on what needs to be done.

[Person_Man]

You may be over analyzing the situation a bit. Most actions are a result of social conditioning, not intelligence.

Think about how you spend your day. Waking up, getting dressed, driving to work, surfing the internet, attending a meeting, having lunch, surfing the internet, writing something, surfing the internet, driving home, cooking dinner, spending time with your spouse or friends, surfing the internet, watching tv, going to bed. How many decisions did you make where your relative level of intelligence actually means anything?

You may argue that people who are more intelligent say and do different things then less intelligent people. For example, and intelligent person might discuss books, computers, and history, whereas a less intelligent person might discuss celebrities, tv, and hair products. But that's largely about cultural tastes, not intelligence. There are plenty of geniuses who obsess about lolcats, whereas my illiterate barber can speak 4 languages and articulately discuss the global economic crisis.

Intelligence is largely about how good your memory is, how quickly you learn new things, and your reasoning/problem solving skills. Memory in D&D is largely handled by the Knowledge Skills and how well the player takes notes while the DM describes things. Learning new things is handled by leveling up and learning new Skills. Reason/problem solving is easy to tone down - just don't be the first person to jump on a riddle or puzzle.

So I really don't see what the issue is.

[Greenish]

illiterate barber

He misread the class description?

[WarKitty]

In your character background give yourself some simple flaws. Not the I take this flaw for a free feat flaws. I mean just odd ways of acting and thinking. Things like

Thinks Rogues are the best class.
Hates all lizards and lizardmen.
Thinks Fire is the best damage type.

And so on, you can add to this as you go.

Now when you get into a tactical situation go thru your list and work out what to do. If the Rogue in the group is getting attacked defend the rogue, if lizards are there then attack the lizards first. Always open up with fire spells even if its not the best tactic.
Make as many of these as you like, you can develop more as you go along.
Now spend your time thinking about why your character believes these things and still acts on them (to use up your processing power so you can keep it simple)
After so long of doing this, like giving up a tactical advantage to protect the rogue your group are going to think you have low int.

Make it psychological. Figure out how your character is unintelligent. Then figure out how he reacts to that. How does your character feel when he doesn't get something? How does he feel when other people imply that his plans suck? How does he feel when they talk down to him? Does he try and overcompensate for his unintelligence?

Basically you should get so wrapped up in the psychology of your character that you don't have time to think about planning.

The trouble is that sounds like a *really* stupid character. I'm playing a character on the slightly low end of average; I don't want to make her into a complete idiot but I don't want to have a "has a plan for everything" like my last character (16 int).

[valadil]

The trouble is that sounds like a *really* stupid character. I'm playing a character on the slightly low end of average; I don't want to make her into a complete idiot but I don't want to have a "has a plan for everything" like my last character (16 int).

Heh. I'm so used to D&D with its point buy that I figured all characters either had 18 int or 8.

Anyway, for an average int character I think you need to be asking questions instead of providing answers. But if you pick the right questions, the other characters will pick up on your idea.

For instance, let's say your mission is to infiltrate the local thieves guild. The group has already decided they'll try and befriend a thief and then get into the guild from there. But you're stuck on how to find that first thief.

An intelligent character would offer up:

We'll set a trap for him. Dress Percy up in some noble's clothes with a feathered hat and expensive perfume. Send him out drinking. Percy will spend gold, making it obvious that he has more. Then he'll pass out at the bar. Gorak, you sit two tables behind Percy and watch his coin purse. When it gets stolen, we have our thief.

Whereas a reasonably intelligent but not stunningly bright one might suggest:

What if we caught one of them in the act? Like, if we knew what they were going to steal, we'd be sitting there waiting.

I guess what I'm suggesting is that a slightly less bright character can still offer up an idea, but leave the implementation to the other players. By phrasing it as a question you make it sound like you're less sure that it's a viable option.