Handicapped D&D Characters
Being a Player and a Game Master, I've encountered this picture a number of times: there is a PC with low INT at the table, and somebody is trying to force that player to play a dumb character, where the reasoning is that anything below a certain point (e.g. lower than 10 INT) means that PC is horrible at performing certain actions. From my point of view, that leads to a number of things that you don't want to take place:
- players are frustrated,
- story momentum is lost,
- actual rules are disregarded.
First things first, the player with a low-INT PC does not always want to role play a redneck farmer with a funny accent. Explaining it to someone usually makes them argue with you, and that leads to you becoming frustrated with them, too. This is not something anyone would want in the middle of a story, which leads to my next point.
The situation would usually make an appearance during roleplaying or a puzzle encounter, possibly with a looming threat. Distracted, players tend to forget about in-game circumstances and begin proving their point of view. It doesn't matter if there are rocks falling on their hands or the town guard is going to arrest them, players are fully submerged into the topic of whether one should play an idiot or not. So much for the pacing and atmosphere, right?
Lastly, some of these players would argue that there are levels of comprehension, and beyond a certain level PCs are just too dumb to act as a normal human being. Again, this is in a game where you might start with -2 to any ability! The point is that in modern D&D there are no limits on when you may or may not understand languages or be a smart guy (remember Worgs or Space Hamsters?). I would take that into consideration in a system that does feature such division (Pathfinder, for example), but certainly not in a game that has nothing written about INT gradation of creatures. I think it's fair to say that it is left to players' imagination at this point.
All in all, telling others that their PC should act like a moron is quite pointless. It builds tension at the table, takes away from the experience, and also has no ground in the rules. We all know kobolds as scaled goblins that throw feces at foes and that are quite dumb but handy, but no one would roleplay a Kobold Scale Sorcerer NPC as a commoner-level intelligent character even though it has average INT score. Telling others how to play their character is also an awful habit.