Dumb Characters, Roleplay, and Immersion

[Arturick]

I've been listening to a lot of "Actual Play" podcasts lately, and, much like gaming, it's a variably satisfying activity.

I haven't had to deal with the "Dumb Character" (DC for short) in one of my own games for a while.  Characters who don't always say the right thing?  Sure.  Characters who make a bad strategic move in a heated combat?  Definitely.  But, I haven't had to deal with the guy who blows up random buildings, drops their trousers in front of the king, or starts a fight in every...  single...  tavern... in the universe.

I read/hear a lot of defenses of the DC as adding excitement to game by springing obvious traps, triggering ambushes, and otherwise adding some unpredictability.  In my own experience, either as a player, DM, or listener to a podcast, I'm totally pulled out of the game when the DC activates his custom schtick, because it never feels like a truly "in-character" thing to do.

When the DM describes, for example, trapped altar #27 with OBVIOUS EVIL ARTIFACT sitting on top of it, then someone runs up and grabs the OEA because they have the "greedy flaw" or their "Wisdom's only 10," the sense of immersion breaks down for me for a few reasons.

1.  The character is supposed to be in a situation where death (or eldritch horrors that make death shriek and pee itself) is entirely possible.  Even if the character is kinda dumb and literally doesn't know how to be careful, he should be making some fumbling effort at self-preservation.  Or he should already be dead.

2.  If the character is mentally retarded, the rest of the group should have kicked him out by now, because they, too, risk death or worse.

3.  If the character doesn't die as a result of his stupidity, it means that this particular trap/ambush/evil artifact isn't able to achieve it's stated goals WHEN GIVEN THE MOST FAVORABLE OPPORTUNITY TO DO SO!

4.  If the obvious trap can't kill/disable the moron, then it reeks of DM Mercy F#$%, which makes me think about the situation in a purely metagame context.

I was listening to "The Strand Gamers: Kingmaker" on rpgmp3.com, and a few situations really jumped out at me.

-The party encounters a Shambling Mound.  The party is level 2.  The Mound doesn't notice them, and Knowledge:  Nature checks are being rolled and resolved into the DM effectively saying, "You went the wrong way.  This will kill you."  While the party mulled over the information, the alchemist ran up and threw a fire bomb at the Mound.  The party won, because DM Mercy F#$% Mode was activated and the Mound started doing stupid things (it forgot it's own Engulf ability, randomly switched targets, didn't finish off constricted opponents, didn't take attacks of opportunity, etc.).

-Nobody in the party can swim worth a damn and they keep jumping into 300' wide rivers.  When one of them gets a lucky roll and doesn't start drowning, they decide that they are suddenly an expert swimmer and jump back in to save a comrade.  Nobody drowns, anyway, they just get beat up by rocks and deposited somewhere downstream.  *cue Yakety Sax*

Does it break immersion for you when the game turns into a Monty Python/Benny Hill sketch, or am I just being a gaming snob?

[Lord Slasher]

I disagree with these guys on DCs. There's a big difference between early Homer Simpson and Jar Jar.

[Unbeliever]

Does it break immersion for you when the game turns into a Monty Python/Benny Hill sketch, or am I just being a gaming snob?

Yes.  Though I am a confirmed gaming snob. 

I don't find #1 and #2 listed in the OP as particularly convincing.  You don't really have a choice of who your "party" is -- it's a conceit of the game and the troupe that it's going to be the folks around the table.  And, a kind of meta-level of realism probably doesn't work for nearly any heroic genre.  Conan "should" have been killed dozens of times over, but characters like him (or Achilles or Odysseus, flavor as appropriate) are fun and what the game is about.  I don't think being reckless shouldn't necessarily be disallowed, it's part of role-playing, and I don't want everyone to play forensic pathologists instead of adventurers. 

But, the examples are silly, which breaks any sense of the world.  And, the DM having to step to save everyone all the time robs any actions of consequences.  At that point, why bother playing the game? 

Finally, the swimming example, for instance, breaks any connection between the mechanics and the character sheet and a player's actions.  Bruenor the dwarf (or a certain character in a certain series of novels who fights a certain battle at sea) knows he will sink like a stone if he falls into the water while wearing his armor.  That should influence his decisions, give him something to worry about other than axes and arrows, and just make things more interesting.  In an RPG, you know that b/c of the mechanics, it's symbolized by that -8 to Swim modifier.  And, it's just being casually disregarded.  Again, at that point, why bother with the rules? 

P.S.:  if you have to point to things on your sheet (e.g., a low stat) then it's probably not an organic part of your character.  I think the OP hits it right by saying that they just don't feel in-character.  They are slapstick and not taking the conflicts and the milieu seriously. 

[zook1shoe]

Sounds fun... Where are said podcasts?

Oops I see it

[Arturick]

Sounds fun... Where are said podcasts?

Oops I see it

I recommend looking up the RPG Light Entertainment Division Pathfinder podcasts on rpgmp3.com as well.  Those can get frustrating occasionally because the DM is awesome while the players are...  well...  allergic to good decisions and quasi-realistic interactions with NPCs.

[zook1shoe]

Thanks

[Dkonen]

I've played characters with no education, or characters who are impulsive and reckless, it can be a lot of fun, but I do have to make sure I'm not hurting anyone but me.

I have also had the DC. Usually they die or something else awful happens. One rogue was blendered in a single round for thinking he was a tank at third level, and a scout who undertook an oath to a Seelie fey noble was almost completely wiped from memory (everyone's-including his diety's) for breaking said oath.

I have also played beside the DC. We have one who has been handed a major plot to play through so the player could play a "main character", and then subsequently did *nothing* about it.. well not entirely true. He delayed us in completing it by hemming and hawing and going offtrack in some weird not quite logic experiment gone horribly wrong. As a result, nearly every character in the party hates him because they're now carrying heavy infernal taint in an effort to fix the problems he caused/got into. About two thirds of the campaign led to horrible things happening to the characters because of the DC. He will not be handed a major plot again.

With a diverse table, you can steamroll over the DC moments, or you can roll with it and have IG ramifications. To be honest the only real issue is when you have more than one DC. At that point you have to decide a threshold and stick to it. As a DM you can start throwing in consequences, as a player-well- I don't advocate PvP, but I have been known to kill a particular party unfriendly DC (he got one character killed and another petrified, after repeated warnings about dragging more monsters into an already engaged fight).

There is a line between silly/quirky and destructive to the party. I believe in consequences for both, but the latter tends to get the more deadly results. Destructive players are destructive players, saying it's "because it's what my character would do" is still a jerk comment, whether being direct (by killing PCs) or indirect (by getting PCs killed).

Consequences should always have a place in campaigns, and if it becomes a "that's what my character would do" well then you've got a "well that's what the NPCs/my character would do." I don't like eye for an eye, but repeat offenders can be..well... a bit dense (the question then is: dumb character or dumb player?)

[b100d_arrowz]

I've had to deal with this with several of my players... For example in the last session they were fighting a dragon that wa having fun burrowing around underground and then popping up and showering them with it's breath weapon and full attack. Instead of trying to think of a strategy to prevent this, the party's gunslinger decided it would be an absolutely brilliant idea to run on the dragon's treasure pile and start stealing shit  So naturally he got grabbed, pulled under ground, and eaten...


Another time I had a player show up late to a session, so I told him his character runs up to the tower was investigating a few minutes after they got there. Quick note on this character, he is blind so I had given him the scent ability to make him not be completely incompetent. So he knows very clearly the party has descended through a trap door to go investigate the dungeon under the tower. There is an older scent trail up the stairs in the middle of the room. So naturally he goes up those instead of following the party. He notices there is a door they clearly have no been thorugh up there... doesn't see the trap [woooo for natural ones as a rogue], and gets pretty fucked up by the trap. Seeing there was a good reason not to eb up there, he goes after the rest of the party. Finally! I think, now the party has it's trapbai... trap finder. Instead of following the party though, which he can clearly do with his scent ability and keen ears, he decides it would be brilliant to go the opposite way. Which leads to teh dungeon boss... which was a wizard... with a wand of dominate. Yes that was the end of that character.


With my group now I began to give a small amount of roleplay exp to reward those that were actually engaging in it (with us doing our sessions over skype/roll20 some felt they would be better served only fighting and never tlaking), and this has exploded into our time between sessions being filled with interparty roleplay in our skype group. Which was fine at the start, it led to the characters actually talking to one another about their backstory, and building rapport between them in their fight against our BBEG... however now it has degenerated into a few characters maneuvering to get their character's together in bed and doing little to nothnig in advancement of the plot. We just had the DC syndrome surface in the party's loot distribution, in party they decided on a system where they each get a free non-weapon and non-armor magic item per loot division, and the order of picking rotates so everyone gets a shot at having first pick and such. However in this last drop, since it was a dragon's hoard, there was a single item worth far more then the rest (amulet of nat armor +4, next highest cost magic item was 6k). Now this item is perfect for almost everyone, for who doesn't want natural armor? It went unclaimed until the end of the loot order, because they knew that they would have much lower priority in the loot distribution next time, if they got a turn (dependent on the value of the next loot drop)... foolish players 

[Arturick]

@blood-arrowz:

1.  Bravo for not being afraid to just kill someone who's being a blatant idiot.

2.  Fights over treasure distribution make me want to punch people in the face.  It makes me want to push people to actually take Weapon Focus (something nobody else uses) just to get such issues more easily resolved.  Otherwise, I push Item Creation Feats and give the party gobs of money.

[linklord231]

As a tactically-minded individual, I find that I often want to punch my group's resident dumb character right in the face.  When I say "Hang on a sec, let's buff you up before you kick in the door so we don't waste actions in combat," he says "LOL NOPE" and sunders the door.  When I say "Don't charge the group of enemies, I'm going to drop a crowd control on them.  Charge the guy lingering on his own instead," he says "LOL TOO LATE."  When I point out that the enemy has no ranged attacks, so we could win this encounter by walking swiftly away, he says "CHAAARGE!"  When he says "Cleric, heal me!" I say "Fuck that, you got yourself into this mess!" and the rest of the group glares at me for not being a team player.

Unfortunately, the player in question absolutely LOVES making low-Int, high-Wis characters.  He calls it Wis-DUMB.  I point out that having a high Wisdom should mean that he's capable of recognizing a dangerous situation and should take precautions to avoid dying.  He laughs and ignores me. 

Unfortunately-er, the rest of the group finds his antics hilarious, and eggs him on whenever possible. 

[CaptRory]

There's a difference between a dumb character and dumb play. And if your play is making the game less fun than it is, dumb. XD You can play a stupid character without pissing everyone off.

[SolEiji]

As a tactically-minded individual, I find that I often want to punch my group's resident dumb character right in the face.  When I say "Hang on a sec, let's buff you up before you kick in the door so we don't waste actions in combat," he says "LOL NOPE" and sunders the door.  When I say "Don't charge the group of enemies, I'm going to drop a crowd control on them.  Charge the guy lingering on his own instead," he says "LOL TOO LATE."  When I point out that the enemy has no ranged attacks, so we could win this encounter by walking swiftly away, he says "CHAAARGE!"  When he says "Cleric, heal me!" I say "Fuck that, you got yourself into this mess!" and the rest of the group glares at me for not being a team player.

Unfortunately, the player in question absolutely LOVES making low-Int, high-Wis characters.  He calls it Wis-DUMB.  I point out that having a high Wisdom should mean that he's capable of recognizing a dangerous situation and should take precautions to avoid dying.  He laughs and ignores me. 

Unfortunately-er, the rest of the group finds his antics hilarious, and eggs him on whenever possible.

*Twitch*

This reminded me of a player I have.  Good kid, but dumb as rocks sometimes.  A little backstory... he's playing a sentient flaming dog thing and is just being introduced to the party as the new guy.  Int 8, Wis 14.  He's dumb, but he's not animal dumb or even incapable dumb, just redneck dumb, and he's pretty wise.  Or he SHOULD be.

So, because his kind are normally dumb animals I introduce him to the party via having him be sold as "this amazing talking dog".  As predicted, the party takes the bait and rescues him, intimidating the scuzzy seller away and getting him for free.  So they move like 100 feet away to the place where they agreed to mean the Plot Hook NPC and feed him, befriending him and all since, understandably, this dog is not too keen on these two-leggers.  After all, he was just a prisoner.

So the Plot Device comes and says "Good you're all here, and you have a dog!  Good!  This is a tracking mission.  Your boat to the next stage is ready.  We leave immediately."  What do you do?

The Team: We get on the boat.
The Dog: I fall asleep.

Wait.  What?  He wants to go to sleep for no particular reason.  Right here.  In the middle of the road.  In the city.  The same city which just moments ago was imprisoning him, the same city whose enslaver is but a few hundred feet away.  Nevermind the fact that he's choosing to sleep of all things and not go with the party he JUST befriended, but here?  I try hard to convince him it's a bad idea, but his reasoning?
"I'm an animal.  Clearly these people fed me, so this place must be safe, otherwise why would they feed me?  Herp derp.  Don't worry, I can catch up with them."

He doesn't know where they're going or how long this will take.  He doesn't know how far.  And I stress, they're going via BOAT.  Mr. I-Have-Scent-But-No-Track is gonna track a BOAT over an unspecified amount of marshland filled with disease and crocodiles alone to catch up with the party hours later, when they might be done.  And after all, he doesn't care cause the party is looking for a key and he doesn't even know what a key is.

And he's really on this.  Apparently there's no way with that juicy Wis 14 would he EVER consider to ask "hey, what's that key thing the nice people who saved me are looking for" or "why can't I sleep here" or "HEY MAYBE ITS A BAD IDEA TO THINK YOU'RE SAFE FROM HUMANS IN A HUMAN CITY".  Clearly he was captured by his captors saying there's food inside this bag if you climb in it.  Argh!

It gets better.  Eventually the NPC basically tells him "get on the boat or your ass is grass here" and I can move on.  "So, the boat travels and you reach the swamp temple of doooom."

"I'm not on the boat."

What.

"Nobody picked him up, so since no one brought him aboard he's not on the bo-" *TABLE FLIP* "I'm on the boat."

It... gets... better....

So, this dog is supposedly the alpha predator in his homeland.  The harsh, nuclear flatlands in the north.  Nevermind that he can't be, there's some seriously bad shit up there, but ok, master predator, doom of the north, whatever.  So they reach this temple, signs of a slaughter, and crocodiles nibbling on the dead.  The crocs are mostly background fluff/environmental hazard because at their level, a croc or two is no threat.  So the party fords, or flies, over the disease ridden river to the other side.  And the dog?

"I blow up all the crocs with my pew pew fire breath, then run and jump across the river."

He's not even eating these crocs.  Just decided to blow them up for no reason.  They were ignoring him.  Boy does not understand how animals survive... either by being big and scary or by being unnoticed, and by not wasting energy or making noise.  Argh, whatever...  he makes it to the other side after a scuffle with the Big King Croc and they meet the one other new player.  And other insane things happy, such as how he immediately earns the new person's animosity by threatening to kill her.

And the most infuriating thing is that I've played a build so very similar to this, and so, SO much better.  Wan was this giant werewolf-like creature with even lower Int (5) and some high wisdom (14) who was convinced he was a normal dog, ablit a talking giant dog.  He had a very simple mindset, but he wasn't stupid.  He might have had bad math-smarts, but if he saw something he could figure things out from what he saw.  And frankly that wisdom sometimes made him seem smarter than some of the other players at time with vastly superior intelligence.

*Twitch*     It appears I snapped there for a moment.  Hmm, whose blood is this on my hands.  Excuse me, I have to call my lawyer.

[Yirrare]

Thanks for the story, SolEiji. It was really amusing to hear. I can see, though, how it's not so funny if you were there. With actions like those, I wonder if some people are deliberately trying to wreck the game?

Best Regards
Yirrare

[Kasz]

In my first ever game of D&D, it was 3.5 and only the DM had ever played before. This is a story about a Dumb guy and a Dumb DM.

We were told to make characters at level 1 and have some idea of backstory, we ended up being...

me - Gnome Bard
Friend - Elven fighter (with 14 STR and 14 DEX "I love Tolkien's elves.")
Workmate - Human Cleric
Dumb Workmate - Lizardman (lizardfolk) Barbarian (no one knew the rules for LA so the +1 was ignored)

Are backstories are edited slightly at the end to include a "you recieve an invite to a Druid's forest where he wishes to pit adventurers against his gauntlet"

I immediately thought... that's more of a wizard thing but cool whatever, go against the grain. Turns out the Druid was the DMPC Mary Sue who was min-maxed and then further improved with outright cheating. "Wealth per level... pets get that too, how else would he get gear?" "All bonuses stack, so mage armour and bracelets of armour and a breastplate all stack"

I know better now... and no we could not just "abuse his rules right back", we were level 1 and we didn't know better. (plus the start was much better than "you meet in a tavern")

So we get to this enclave and there's a huge wooden tree with a door / entry place to like a castle but made of trees and woods... and a big queue. Theres like 20 or so people here... so we line up and this 'animal messenger' tells us to get into our assigned groups... we look at our invites and it's all "you are group RACCOON" "You are group PANTHER"... all the PC's were group Badger... so we're introducing ourselves and it's actually going kinda well... until group Panther leans over and are all like "hur hur hur, y'all look like Badgers" now we're just like "was that an insult...?" except the Barbarian he goes... "well my character sheet says rage so... I rage when I hear that" So that's his 1/day rage gone... before the "Gauntlet"

Once raging he proceeds to attack the unarmed guy with his Scythe... first roll of the game, natural 20 on a x4 weapon from a 2 handed raging lizardfolk barbarian... onto a fellow lvl 1 Ranger or some such. Guy gets turned into paste.

The severity of the attack meant that no one else wanted to mess with the barbarian so we're all "phew... okay th-"
Lizardman: I'm still raging, I attack this guy (points at a random mini close to his)
Rolls, hits, guy goes to negative.
Party: What the hell? he didn't say anything
Lizardman: but...I'm raging

At this point people draw weapons but no one knows wtf to do... we kinda try to say "we're not with him" but we don't want to get attacked either.

So he proceeds to coup de grace the guy on negative hitpoints and then attack some elf lady with his teeth...

Then the Druid appears riding a tiger (the companion), judging by the description I'd guess they were both pretty hardcore... turns out later we find out the druid was level 12.

The lizardman's like "I want to wrestle a tiger!" and lets the elf lady go only for his rage to run out.... the DM explains "fatigue" for like 30 mins and so he goes... Okay... well then I lie down and relax, looking at the druid.

The druid, apparently oblivious that 2 people didn't survive the QUEUEING process and one is pretty badly hurt starts breaking into his pre-planned speech.

We find out that we have to pick a door blah blah blah first group to the end blah blah chest of gold. We go in and the barbarian starts whining about that rage not counting etc because he was provoked. Eventually the DM agrees that Barbarians should be able to rage whenever they are angry on top of the 1/day rage they can activate which became a 'if I'm not angry then 1/day'

So we fight through and get the gold, it takes days but that's kinda the point of the 'gauntlet' so we're looking at the chest of gold... described as a chest as wide as a man and almost as tall as me (gnome). so I'm thinking "THOUSANDS" but it was only hundreds. anywho the Lizard's like....
Lizard: We won the chest of gold right....
Me: yeah
Lizard: so we won the chest
Me: yeah it's right there.
Lizard: Well... I don't have any use for gold so I want the chest
*proceeds to tip the gold on the floor and take the chest.*
Party: right... we'll just stuff our pockets and backpacks then... *DM didn't understand encumbrance either*

Right... I'll also mention the chest was at the top of a bigass treehouse. The Lizard walks to the edge and looks down.
Lizard: I don't want to walk all the way back to the start and I can see the start from here, strength is a jump skill and I'm pretty strong... I jump down.
DM: it's like 200ft up it's a huge ass ancient oak, not some random tree.
Lizard: I'm a lizard barbarian, I see point B I go in a straight line from point A.
DM: roll... jump... I guess.
Lizard: 20.
DM: right... okay you jump then... I guess.
Party: So he just fell 200ft without any downsides carry a chest you said took him 2 hands to carry at all.
DM: oh yeah... well you're dead then
Lizard: Damn, I take it back.
Party: sigh.


That game ran so much longer than it should have... including stuff like... I smash the town guard because Barbarian's hate guards and would never do something like sheath his weapon in a bar just because someone told him to.

He once used up his last rage starting a mosh pit and when it ran out the minotaur he'd been moshing against against it's will beat the snot out of him... when the DM realised he was on 1hp the next unarmed attack somehow killed the thing by tearing it's horn off.

Lots of Dumb character does dumb thing causing inexperienced GM to mollycoddle group. Why does dumb character do dumb thing... cause that's totally what a big ragey lizard would do.

Oh yeah when I took a turn DMing I arranged for them to fight an entire cult. (10 people) but one or two at a time. When the Lizard saw the cultists out in the open and all together after being explained how powerful each one was we got the whole... ragey lizard would just charge until he won. Resulting in a TPK because I didn't pull the stops.

The cleric died in the first round, unlucky roll meant he was hold personed and death attacked... because the NPC's used tactics and worked together... but it was like 5 encounters at once so the CR which would have been fine was cranked way up and the action economy was on the cults side.

I got called a terrible DM and the Lizard was magically resurrected before next session "offscreen" ready for Inept DM to take over again. Everyone else still needed to reroll even me because the Inept DM demanded to use my (terrible but fun) Bard rather than let me DM for his precious Druid. Citing some malarky about his Druid being far too good to adventure with us and writing in another character would be tricky etc.

/rant.

tl:dr - dumb characters aren't too bad... but if they make a DM mollycoddle you then it ruins the entire experience. Most of the time they just make the session more awkward and drag to accommodate them.

[NiteCyper]

What I'm reading from you, are dumb players. What would be novel is input of instances of well-played dumb characters, like SolEiji's Wan the werelupine.

There's a similar discussion here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/316252-role-playing-intelligence.html . I think that I could write a better post than what I posted there, so here's another post.

tl;dr: Mental ability scores shouldn't affect how you roleplay, regardless of game mechanics.

Some players play characters that have one or both mental ability scores that are low. The two mental ability scores are Wisdom and Intelligence. Players will affect the play-style of their character with a touch of idiocy to coincide with their low mental ability score(s). They do this because they believe that it characterizes their character, adding to enjoyment of the roleplaying game by the player and others. As the roleplaying game is designed for verisimilitude, characterization adds to it and what's called "immersion".

Yet a common complaint is the over-affectation of idiocy, going beyond a superficial quirk to being a major bane. In D&D, the game is centered on combat. The dumb player-character may piss off the group with whom they adventure by performing badly stupid actions, yet the player will not be apologetic for their actions, citing them as necessary consequences to the implementation of the immersion-enhancing roleplay of idiocy. Factoring in is the group-based nature of D&D which forces the other players to suffer association with the idiot. Solutions to the problem include to alter the player's play-style of the so-called dumb character, or killing the character.

I believe that it is not à propos to roleplay the character as stupid, since the game system already factors this in. For example, Craft is a skill determined by Intelligence. When the dumb character attempts to Craft something, the player need not and must not determine their success by roleplaying. How success is determined for the Craft skill usage attempt is explicitly defined, in a logical and physical manner. It is not the player who decides that their character automatically fails because they believe that their character is too dumb to succeed. By the rules, anyone can attempt to Craft.

But what about stuff that the game system doesn't cover? Anything that is worth covering, the game system covers. If it is believed that there is insufficient coverage, it is the DM who has the final say on whether or not it is so and if they deem that there is insufficient coverage, a new mechanic should be employed to bridge the gap to the attempted action. Else of how the character should be played is at the prerogative of the player.

There are certain things that are in control of the player or not: Whether or not to Bluff? Yes. How well they Bluff? No. The character's attitude toward worshippers of a certain religion? Yes. How well the character dodges an attack? No. Unless the rules have a place for it, it's up to the player, but if the rules don't have a place for it, the player cannot claim that their character did something dumbly because they are dumb, because dumbness is a clearly defined element in the game. A character may have high Charisma, but that doesn't make them extroverted. What you are and what you do--no matter how synonymous--are different verbs and aren't perfectly interchangeable.

The end.

There are a lot of points from my EN World post that I didn't use, points which are good.