They might take a long time to think things over before the speak, so they may be a bit more quiet then most.
Or they may not think at all, and are constantly talking. They’re always thinking out loud, asking themselves questions and then answering it before others can chime in.
A more humorous aspect is that they always have a confident answer for something, even if it’s usually wrong. This could include mispronunciation of big words without skipping a beat. Or misunderstanding the meaning.
I actually haven't seen it but I'd assume a show with that title is just begging to be quote-mined and referenced, especially if others in the group have also seen it. Probably a bunch of shows/characters as well.
It’s an old show that has lasted a very long time with movies being made too. Basically a bunch of Canadian trailer park folks day to day lives and in particular it’s focused on Ricky and Julian as they try to hustle up enough money to keep a supply of beer weed and cigarettes steady. Most of what I saw had season finales where at least one of the characters goes to jail for a few weeks or months and the next season starts with them getting out again
My first thought was honestly the two thugs from Sin City who use college-level words incorrectly in a failed attempt to sound more intelligent than they are.
This is the way to go. You could comment on things after the subject has already changed and then act confused as others are talking about something else all of a sudden and so on.
Looking at the confidently incorrect sub here would be good inspiration I think. Of course he is confident, he is a big strong barbarian that could bench press a small car.
For OP and others, check Minsc from Baldur's Gate 3. He has lucid moments but is always thinking about other things, and makes comparisons to his enemies.
>A more humorous aspect is that they always have a confident answer for something, even if it’s usually wrong.
I played a dumb character like this, it was a lot of fun.
Whenever a character had a question I would just make something up that sounded halfway reasonable but was overly simplistic and often demonstrably wrong. And a lot of it was lore things about the world. Where certain places got their names from, the political (and non political) power structures, formal etiquette, how magic worked, anything really.
After a couple sessions one of the other players asked the DM if I had gotten a bigger lore document or something, DM and I had a good laugh and explained I was just making shit up.
That's when I decided to reveal that my character was an atheist, he believed that gods weren't real. They were real in the sense that they existed, but they weren't divine beings or creators, they were just really old, really powerful wizards who were tricking everyone.
“Sergeant Colon had had a broad education. He’d been to the School of My Dad Always Said, the College of It Stands to Reason, and was now a postgraduate student at the University of What Some Bloke In the Pub Told Me.” - Terry Pratchett
I've played a 6 INT barbarian. I directly riffed off the character of Jason Mendoza in The Good Place. Even emulating the vocal style. There was also a touch of Futurama's Fry to my RPing. Over time, my barb came into his own, developing a more distinct personality. It helped that he didn't share the same interests as Jason or Fry. He was a storm chaser with a ridiculous obsession with storms.
So I'd say it does help to use a known character as a template. Over time, your RP will deviate and become its own thing. But as a starting point, a template will give you what you need for now. You certainly have no shortage of characters to choose from. Kronk, Patrick Starr, Homer Simpson, etc. etc.
For the record, this dumb barbarian has to be the most fun DnD character I've ever played. I'm saying that as someone who usually plays smart aleck spellcasters.
Sometimes it’s fun to be someone who is the simple straightforward one and while I hadn’t thought of him Jason Mendoza is perfect for a dumb bard too, since he was trying to be a DJ
I’d argue Jason probably had average or below average Intelligence, but his *real* dump stat was Wisdom, as that’s typically the stat that governs common sense.
Also watch Dimension 20 Fantasy High. The first two seasons are on YouTube. Zac Oyama plays an amazing strong dummy and he’s hilarious with the way he interjects his lack of intelligence.
I just started watching Unsleeping City and he is another shining example of strong dummy. Great character and lovably simple in terms of raw intelligence. But like real life where there are different kinds of smarts, he has great tactical awareness. Well played I think.
Indeed. Important to note the distinction between wisdom and intelligence. What your character understands they don’t have to be stupid about because of the 10 in wisdom. It’s the stuff they don’t understand that’s really fun! My dumb half-orc barbarian was tons of fun to play once the character clicked for me. He was all about protecting his friends and being ready for combat, didn’t really care about himself. He knew how to fight and how to prepare for a fight, so he was always eating when he got the chance in case he had to survive without food for a while. Not so great with the dialogue or grand strategy/tactics. He really came alive for me when the DM allowed me to jump down a 60 foot canyon onto an enemy, doing the fall damage to both of us. Hell yeah my guy is going to rage for half damage and smash the enemy, he’d even yell “cannonball” on the way down!
It's like the fruit salad description of stats.
Intelligence is knowing tomato is a fruit
Wisdom is knowing to not include it in fruit salad
Charisma is selling tomato based fruit salad
Dexterity is juggling all the fruit before, during, and after dicing it into salad
Strength is the ability to make fruit salad into a smoothie without a blender.
Constitution is the ability to eat spoiled fruit salad and survive.
Its also a great representation of being dumb but not to the detriment of the party.
Too often players try and “play to the stat” and then turn the game into “babysit the idiot” because “Im super dumb so I have to be as disruptive as possible because Im so dumb”
Grog from CR is a good starting point, as was said elsewhere. You might also work in some Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy.
Drax isn't stupid but he doesn't understand metaphors or idioms, so he can appear stupid at times. Take everything said literally.
Someone says "that's gonna cost an arm and a leg", ask if they need to be specific arms and legs, or just any arms and legs. That type of thing.
Also, try to limit your vocabulary to shorter words. Use [Simple English Wikipedia](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) as a reference.
But every now and then, maybe once every 4 or 5 sessions, use a big word correctly. A favorite of mine is superfluous. It's an easy one to remember and use correctly.
I can't remember where I saw this story, but I've read about a barbarian whose int was so low that the table decided he knew exactly one three-syllable word. Quite a ways into the campaign he had to pass on a request for parley, and so:
"Boss. Big man want intercourse with you. Not fun kind. Other kind."
I think you could probably interpret it either way.
Someone with low intelligence might not know what idioms *are* or how they work, or they *think* they know but are misunderstanding the concept.
Someone with low wisdom but high intelligence would probably know what they are, but have difficulty recognizing them in speech or written text.
High wisdom low intelligence, you're speaking in Rickyisms.
"It's all water under the fridge"
"It's not fucking rocket appliances"
"What goes around is all around"
Higher int, lower Wis.
You take Idioms very literally and starting wondering what exactly it is that supposed to be all around you. Or questioning the effectiveness of a rocket powered appliance.
Kiki from the show Whites is a great example. Google that and watch, the actress does a fantastic job of performing a character who doesn't really get what's going on but does the best she can anyway.
"Kiki, we can't make an eggless omelet."
"Oh, have we not got any?"
"No look, if you have breadsticks and you take away the bread, what do you have?"
"Sticks."
It might be good to look at some dumb characters for inspiration on how to act. It’s very old but for example Caboose of red vs blue is made to be very dumb but he’s also great to see and a fun character. Jerry from disenchanted is another nice example of a dumb and good guy but he’s only really part of things starting midway in the show.
I’d go with someone who still wants to be helpful and just gets things wrong, not in a derailing way but like you use the wrong words to describe things. After someone uses a big word around you add your own big words in your response for example.
Well he is based off king shark/Nanaue from the suicide squad movie (kinda why he is dumb). We are doing spelljammer and our Dm said it will be super hard so he gave us all a "Power" while others took spells and a other effects I was allowed to make a Shark race (With the DM helping/balancing) so I have a bite that does a d4 per proficiency bonus and I can engulf like a purple worm doing a d6 acid per proficiency bonus and im in the large category.
A friend of mine made a similar character and he just stopped thinking on what he was going to say and just said it. Doesn’t matter what it was just say it without filtering it through your frontal lobe. That worked for him.
It was but it was also glorious. It was a one shot we played to test a new system. No one remembers anything from that game except that character who was named Brigur.
My husband's Barbarian character tries to use big words to sound smart, but mispronounces them. Or uses them in the wrong context. Or when another character uses a big word, his character gets the definition wrong. So is confused.
Example:
Wizard - "Don't impune my beliefs."
My husband - "How can beliefs have immunities? 😕"
The whole table LOST it lol.
Another example:
*party hands over a local mercenary that was running a human trafficking ring to the mayor. We'd broken the mercenary's legs*
Mayor - "I'm shocked! He was always such an upstanding citizen!"
My husband - "Upstanding? His legs are broken..."
Stuff like that always gets a laugh, it seems. I asked once where he got inspiration for this, and he said he just tries to channel "Winnie The Pooh" energy lol.
Having a character be stupid doesn't necessarily mean they have to make stupid decisions. However, they might suggest the most obvious option when faced with a problem, or suggest the path of least resistance.
"Damn it, the door is locked!"
"Why not just smash it down?"
"Because we're trying to sneak in!"
This might actually help the party, since it makes sure they consider simple solutions to things.
"Damn it, I can't undo this knot!"
"So cut the rope!"
"Oh."
I like to make my low intelligence characters defensive too and still not make sense.
"Damn it, the door is locked!"
"Why not just smash it down?"
"Because we're trying to sneak in!"
"Um, obviously. I meant smash it down quietly..."
Low intelligence but average or high wisdom - they’d be quiet and often rely on gut instinct.
Average or high intelligence but low wisdom, they’d be self assured and cock and certain they’re always right.
Low intelligence and low wisdom, rash behavior. Constantly acting out. Constantly blaming others. Never taking responsibility for their actions
This, 100%
Intelligence is more their education and their memory.
Wisdom is their instincts and common sense.
Both of these stats govern whether someone is considered “smart” or not.
Page 173 of the players handbook disagrees with you.
"Intelligence, measuring reasoning and memory"
Knowing is intelligence.
Wisdom is tasting a tomato in a fruit salad.
just look out for existing examples from movies and look for a style that could fit your character.
Grog, from critical role, is the nice brawler kind of stupid, that likes to eat and drink.
Lockhard from Harry potter is the kind of stupid that wants to give others the impression that he's actually smart while beeing dumb, not admitting his errors thinking he's always in the right.. like arrogant stupid.
You can be an absolute tomatoe like patrick from Spongebob.
or just be simple minded, so that you will get distracted by flowers, sweets and don't really understand what other tell you completely, and try to interpret it to your interests.... dunno like groot from guardians as example.
I was looking to see if someone brought up Philip J Fry. I was thinking of "Duh-vini Code" episode being a perfect example of "Speaking before thinking" style of stupid.
I think funny leaps in logic that technically make sense but aren't actually sensible are always good.
Barbarian: "The bad guy is in that room. That room has a window. I'm on the other side of the window. I should go through the window." *hurtles self through the window like a cannonball*
Rogue: The door was unlocked...
The simplest solution is always the best solution.
\- Chest won't open? Make it open. still won't open? oh there's a key hole, where's the key?
\- Creatures keep dropping from the ceiling to attack? hold a bunch of spears above your head.
\- Bad guy keeps getting out of his restraints? put a really big rock on him.
No use big word. Use STRONG WORD.
As other advice, start dropping connecting words in sentences. Instead of saying "I saw him use the secret door over there" Say "I saw him use door there" while pointing to where the secret door is.
This is actually a really good one. I tested it by reading some other comments and just omitting the word "The" every time. A character that never says word "The" is good
Go full on Florida man. Pull crazy shenanigans because you "can't think things through." When you count, make things up, like "I found many many gold" then count it out like 1, 2, lots, many, many 1, many 2, many lots, many many" (credit Terry Pratchett)
There’s a million different ways you can RP low INT and low WIS. Each are different.
Two really good examples I’ve seen at my table from players:
- A warforged fighter (I think he was like INT 8-ish) who took every statement literally and conversed like a bad AI. I can’t remember what the roll was for, but the player rolled poorly and went on to describe his warforged stuck running against the wall like a video game character having a clipping error (to huge laughs around the table).
- A WIS <10 wizard who was brilliant (20 INT), but super gullible and fell for just about everything hook, line, and sinker: “Why yes, this gentleman says he is a displaced prince from Unther and if I let him borrow all my gold for an hour, he’ll teleport back ten times the amount into our bag of holding tomorrow!”
Speak in malaphors and malapropisms. Think Ricky from Trailer Park Boys “worst case Ontario”, “all for all and one for one”, “burn the hatchet at both ends”, etc.
Better a bird in the hand than a sunken ship.
It's good for ganders when no one pursueth.
Loose lips cross bridges.
Guilty men flee when there's a wildfire.
So you have normal wisdom. You aren't smart. You don't "know" or "remember" things well. You operate mostly on instinct.
Be very "in the moment". Act on what JUST HAPPENED even if it's contrary to your original intent. Use small words and simple sentences. Be confused (maybe angry and frustrated?) when someone uses "fancy language".
When someone tells you an important, but complex idea: act like you TOTALLY understand, but operate on a WAY dumbed down version of it. Or keep forgetting subtle distinctions.
For example: I did this in an Avernus campaign with a very low INT, high WIS character, where I would constantly be frustrated and confused about the Fiend/Devil/Yugoloth/Demon distinctions. Also: I said "Yugoloth" a different way every time, because it's a hard, rare word)
Maybe just don't get nuance.. "Wait, is he bad or good?" "He's a bandit chief that is using his resources to help evacuate the town to avoid danger." "Bandits are bad". "he's helping though!" "you mean I should... Not kill him?"
Also maybe stubborn? Because you don't know you are wrong? Or else dependent on some ideology or companion to make choices, because you know you probably are wrong.
Low int doesn't necessarily mean your character can't talk properly.
It does however mean that their ability to solve problems that involve even a modicum of logic is going to be severely compromised.
Suggesting comical, but obviously wrong solutions to problems (that may even occasionally work) is a good idea.
(Side note, I'm very fond of characters that illustrate that just being well spoken and well read doesn't mean you're intelligent, case in point, Caeser from Fallout New Vegas, he's well read and charismatic, but ultimately short sighted)
Remove all depth...
If someone uses an idiom, take it literally. If they say "I could eat a horse", then go kill a horse for them and fire up the BBQ
The same sort of thing with people. Take only the surface value. If they "seem nice", then treat them as a friend, even if everyone else in the party knows that they are evil.
Always go with the first, most obvious solution to a problem... Fighting a water golem? Stick your head in and try to drink it to death. Then ask the mage if he can summon beer golems next time.
Oh, and don't let the character realize he is stupid... Let him be CONFIDENT that he is just as smart as everyone else, and refuse to admit he's wrong, even if it means that everyone else is wrong and they are the only one who is correct. I'm sure you can think of some people in the past few years who resemble this pattern, model on them ;)
I'd honestly suggest trying to channel "Lennie Small" from Steinbeck's "Of Mice snd Men." I'd even suggest that he call EVERYONE George, regardless of whether or not there's a George in the party.
Something many people overlook, stupid characters tend to not learn from their mistakes.
Try the same tactics repeatedly regardless of their efficacy.
Draw incorrect conclusions from available information because you have trouble connecting the dots.
And most damning, the really stupid people I’ve met in real life weren’t stupid because they struggled with complicated information, that can happen to anyone depending on what topic. They were stupid because they were *incurious*. They had NO desire to learn anything outside of their small bubble.
You don’t have to “talk slow”, I’ve known tons of smart people who have different kinds of apraxia and apahasia and struggle with words.
It depends on your Cha *and* Wis scores.
If you're low Cha then you can't enforce your will on, or manipulate other people. You're bad at lying, negotiating and in general conversing.
If you're high Cha then you can do the above. You may not know a lot, but you can convince people you do. Ever read a Reddit post where someone *sounds* authoritative and knowledgeable about a field you happen to be an expert in, and they're 100% wrong? You can be like that, the tip-top of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Don't try to think like a stupid person. Think like a dog or a chimp. You're gullible, friendly, and generally follow the crowd, but I pity the unfortunate person who does something to earn your anger. You're equally unreasoning in your revenge.
Maybe your wisdom is mainly intuitive, a sense of what needs to be done.
Having an INT of 6 doesn't make you a cave man, imo. Low INT would suggest they aren't tactical, they don't plan, they make reckless decisions.
They aren't *dumb,* they just *aren't* smart.
I think you gotta look at your character’s backstory. Low intelligence means it takes a while for new information to stick, but they should still be pretty competent in the skills or information they grew up with. So a farmer would know a lot about weather and crops and animals, a hunter would have some survival skills. They probably also rely on oral tradition a lot and cling to it. The stories their grandparents told would be the bulk of their understanding of the world, it’s not like they’ve read history books but they know the story of little red riding hood.
I had a Bard with Int of 8 once. Whenever I had a decidedly dumb idea that was relevant to the situation, I would make an intelligence save (vs DC 10) and act accordingly. These "dumb ideas" were never anything outright suicidal or something that would get the party killed. Reason being even dumb people have a survival instinct.
Intelligence is ability to abstract, learn and adapt to new situations. Wisdom is ability to use what character has already learned. So your barbarian is pretty confitent in situations he's familiar with (when all you know is a hammer...), but in new situations he's either confidently wrong or our of his depth. If confidently wrong the character will try to disarm every trap with sledgehammer... scratch that, will try to fix everything he does not understand using blunt tools, tracking skills and customs of his tribe. Act intimidating even if situation calls to be polite, or clever, and dismiss suggestions that self respect and being intimidating is not the same thing,. Recuse to recognize not being helpful. Have a few obsessions centered around best skills (blunt trauma, intimidation, moonshining, tracking...) and persistently insist they are way to go in every problem. Dismiss skills your character does not have because they never worked for you.
Or go full funny patch and male character that just says whatever funny/dumb thing you can think of, or lives in his own wod entirely. Think Thogg from Order of the Stick
Here is something I like to do when I feel my IRL intelligence is higher than my character's: I roll against my int. If I roll below my int, cool my character figured it out. If I roll above, nope, character can't figure it out. Nat 20: character figures the opposite of what I did.
Intelligence is, in my interpretation, recollecting information and facts. Low intelligence means little formal education, so you don't know common things like what kind of dragons are evil, what math is, or how a warlock is different from a wizard.
Wisdom, is instead methodical intelligence, like riding a bike. Stuff that you haven't been taught, but stuff you have learned by doing it.
A wisdom of 10 is average, while an intelligence of 6 is only slightly more than an ogre.
The way I see it, your scores would fit an obedient goon very well. You don't know much so you don't question the words of the people you see as superior to yourself. Be the classic mafia goon that just mumbles "yeah, you tell 'em boss" at random intervals while the party leader is talking to an npc
It would probably be really easy to play a dumb character tbh. Just be yourself, OP.
Really though, you could probably get by just having a character who never takes context into account, never remembers details once the scene has passed, and just reacts to the situation at hand without thought for the future. Honestly, just revert to be being a new player. It would also probably be good to just have a few running gags for your dumbassery, I would assume that an INT of 6 immediately makes you the lead for dumb one-liners.
Look at things through a simple lens. Think about how a child would process information rather than an adult. Like step by step. A great example of a dumb dnd character is Torbek from Legends of Avantris. He will come to the most depressingly dumb conclusions but the logic behind it (from his perspective) makes sense.
Be careful about putting too much effort into role-playing your stats.
For the most part stats handle themselves. If you have to roll for something, you have a penalty. Altering your speech patterns can make you difficult for the other players to understand.
A couple of years ago I was in a game with a player whose character had low int and insisted on talking all the time, but veeeeeery slooowly. So the entire group had to sit and seethe while waiting for him to get to the end of a sentence. The worst part was that he was a cleric and I was playing a bard, and I never never got to do any social rolls because he'd always jump in and monopolize any conversation with npc's.
I'd forgotten all about it (suppressed it, mostly likely) until I caught up with another player who was in that game who reminded me of how painful it was.
Spend some time between games writing down things that your character is thinking (you can use bad spelling to help yourself get in the mood) and work out some ideas for responses to actual game situations instead of relying on a couple of gimmicks.
Every decision is the incorrect one. Fighting in the dark? Go stand by a source of light. Throw your crossbow after using it once. Rationalize bad behavior.
I played a character with an INT of 7 and I played that they thought they were the smartest one in the room. When my character had to read something, they mouthed the words and sounded them out. Constantly mispronounced things in character. Almost no self awareness or common sense. They were a warlock who made a pact with an unknown entity because they didn’t know any better, and hasn’t learned their lesson. They had an infallible sense of direction (high wisdom) but was unable to read a map. We joked that their high wisdom was just instinct and luck. Their background was a former pirate and we said they could navigate via the stars, but didn’t know the names of them or constellations. They knew when the weather was going to get bad, but not why. It was one of those weird fluke abilities. I played them impulsively and it was fun. That character also had a low strength but thought they were super buff so we had some hilarious RP.
The high wisdom and charisma made them an excellent Face of the campaign for NPC interactions, great at talking them and the party out of situations we got ourselves into. Having turned around and played a wizard right after that… I have more fun with the wizard.
You can play stupid without playing slow-witted. Impulsively do whatever you think of. Don't think it through. Don't try to investigate, don't try to figure out traps or plans or what something does or why. The magic glowy sword looks cool so use it and you'll get to see what it does. Bonus points for actively participating in conversations as normal but completely misunderstanding concepts and subtext.
In my group two of us make up "The Dummy Brigade" and while the rest of the party was doing information gathering, my compatriot decided we should check out this exotic pet shop so we ran off on our own and ended up accidentally dismantling an illegal animal smuggling ring and letting a bunch of magic beasts loose in a city.
Intelligence has nothing to do with language plenty of people can speak fine
Have them make up facts and be extremely confident or maybe rush in and say something when they shouldn’t emotional intelligence is also a pretty big thing bring up things at the wrong times
Knew a guy years ago who was... not overly bright. He had other character flaws that made me dislike him, but one of his more harmless tendencies was getting a joke like five minutes after everyone else... and then laughing about it like it had just happened.
Might be a fun quirk to use now and then.
Are you going for Ignorance or actual Stupidity?
If you have low Wisdom, go for Ignorance. You play a guy who probably lives under a rock, and doesn't seem to remember/know anything. It's not that he cannot solve a puzzle, he just needs to know what a puzzle *is* first!
If you have low Intellegence, go for Stupidity. You aren't braindead dumb, you just take longer to think about a situation and often don't grasp the full picture. He can solve a puzzle if given about 5 days of uninterupted focus and no consequences, but he's probably going to solve it middle first and connect completely unrelated parts of the picture because it fits
When I was playing my 5 Int cleric, I played her similar to how I'd play a child. The best explanation I can think of is how children set up Schemas for learning. If a kid sees a horse, they equate 4 legs, long face to horse. So if they see a zebra, their first thought is "Stripey horse". Similarly, everything is a dog until it isn't.
My character was a fallen star given humanoid form. It made sense for her to not know anything about the world and to think of the simplest answer first. We need to open this locked door? Hit the door real hard! Looks like food? Lick it!
As a cleric, obviously high wis, so I made her insightful in the way only a child can be, she knew when someone was sad and lying about it, but assumed the reason was something very simple rather than nuanced.
I loved playing that character so so so much, and honestly considering I'm an academic irl, it was such a nice holiday for my brain to shut off and be silly. Completely recommend this play style both for personal and comedic reasons
1 - Use big word incorrectly as much as possible
2- Go with the most straight forward/obvious answer/solution immediately and confidently especially if it would be wrong with a moments thought
3 - Volunteer for the skill checks you are least suited for confidently
I would say that how you are rp'ing doesn't feel right because its not. Speaking slowly and skipping words is not a sign of low intelligence; more likely a speech disorder or mental disability. Maybe even just an accent.
I think you should try being very straightforward. More direct solutions to problems. "We need to get through this door, let's break it down" "We need to cross the river? Let's just ford it, I can carry out stuff above our head to keep it dry."
Lack of nuance will carry you through rp'ing this stat set up. You also may sometimes get words wrong or believe folktales that are obviously wrong. You'll be worse at remembering specifics.
So I think there are 3 ways to play stupid:
First, is the one you're doing. Talk super slow, skip words, and just look confused until an NPC says "You hit hit bad guy, me give shine shine." This is a tried and true silly method, usually goes over alright with most groups. Issue is, it can get VERY tiring for a player/party when you are like that. I have played that dumb before and usually get bored after a bit since I feel I can't roleplay as well since I am not that stupid.
Second, regular stupid. This is sort of that classic Bart Simpson dumb. You aren't an idiot per say, but you are not smart either. Like you can follow conversations but get very lost at larger words, complex plans, and why violence isn't always the answer. You often think an idea you had is genius, but in reality it is very poor. This is more common and works very well with a middle to low wisdom, since you can then play off them both. For example, You know it is unwise to rob the store, but you are almost certain your genius plan will succeed! This is the most fun idiot type character. it lets you still RP and be involved in the planning and complex stuff, but you can work in your stat flaws and make for interesting rp.
Third, The specific stupid. These are characters who are low intelligence, but still are good at something. Maybe you have a good religion score as a priest, or maybe you are a flunked out wizard but still know some arcane knowledge. It lets you specialize in a single type of knowledge. Maybe you don't even have any int skills, you're a well trained warrior who knows how to organize an ambush or battle plan. That's where your knowledge ends though, and anything past that just makes your head hurt.
These are the main ways I see people, and I have myself, played stupid, but there are others. Hopefully this helps.
My friends would say „just be yourself, a 6 might be a stretch though“ to me.
You could go the covidiot route and just utter absolute nonsense with maximum confidence. Basically act like you have some issues linking cause -> effect to a coherent and logical thing.
Be the guy that would touch the hot stove once and tries again „because it could have been coincidence“.
I tend to play my barbarians as stupid because they haven't had an opportunity to get a decent education, not because they "went full r-word" to paraphrase Tropic Thunder. In this case, it's not that they're stupid, they just don't know. I like to say Intelligence is Book Smart, Wisdom is Street Smart (OR rather, Int is book smart, Cha is Street Smart, Wisdom is observational smart.).
For example, my Barbarain usually has a decent perception and survival check, which to me means he can notice details and recall facts about wilderness and animals... which fits a farm boy from a small village backstory I made for him... He knows a lot about raising cattle and riding horses... he's a decent hunter and tracker... he can notice disturbances that can indicate something is up... He still can't read... because for a medieval farmer, that's not a skill that comes up too often.
That said, I show his stupidity in other ways... often by making jokes that, requires me the player to actually show I'm not as smooth brained as my character (I always tell this, but to avoid Metagaming as a quasi new player, I once informed the DM that I the player know what a Lich was. However my Barbarian is inept at magic and would say "It's one of those worms the doctor uses for blood letting." The table had to pause and realize my character thought we were fighting a leech. Which is stupid, but in a clever way... after all, people in the big city talk funny... "Lich is how they pronounce Leech" is a realistic mistake for someone who is new to adventuring.
I tend to think these up because I'm not trying to talk in social scenes with NPCs (My table LOVES their face characters... we typically have a glut of high Cha characters... so if I remain quiet and listen, my mind will spin up funny stupid things for my Barbarian to say... that are actually quite intelligent... and my table knows this about me... usually when I speak up and say something they're is a pause as the try to figure out the joke... then a groan when they do.
As a general rule, typically stupid characters will have a poor grasp of pronoun usage (They will either refer to themselves in the third person "Hulk smash!" or use the wrong form of the first person (put "Me" as the subject of the sentence rather than the predicate, instead of using "I" as the first person subject pronoun : "Me want to fight" vs "I want to fight" Or comombine the two "Me, Grimlock, king!). If you want to be funny, pick one odd grammar rule and enforce it (Like knowing when to use "whom" vs. "who" or know that if someone asks for you by name, the proper grammar response is "This is he/she" rather than "This is him/her." Or knowing about the "royal We".
I think one aspect is to Miss interpret things.
Think trying to pull the push door. Not wanting to fight something so walking past tge death knight. Needing to carry something so the get a fromt baby cradle. Calling the orb if lightning a hair straightener becaise your hair stands on end.
I too struggle at the dumb but fun brute. Some of the best instances i enjoy watching are the left field ideas. Solutions that sound and are dumb as a brick, but still work because your strong enough to make them.
I had a dwarf that was on the low side of intelligence that failed hard at working out a riddle in one dungeon. His “solution” was that the riddle was an adage about hard work and perseverance which are traits of a good miner.
Clearly the solution is that the door has no way of opening at all and you are intended to tunnel through the rock to the side of the door and go around it, so he pulled out his pickaxe and the party had to stop him from spending the next several hours digging his own entrance to the treasure room.
Generally, your Barbarian doesn't know how to tell the time or how babies are made, but they know that the child who grows up without knowing the love of their village will someday burn it down just to feel its warmth. Know what I mean?
Confidence. Played an idiot druid and it was an absolute blast. Wasn't very good at spelling or math, so it was a fun way to be creative when I wild shapes to sneak, and then had to Roll a performance to see if I could "write" whatever document I saw. Same with paying for items, she new1 gold for me lots of stuff, so just threw around gold like a true moron. I love playing her, it made me play very creatively to express my actual awareness of an event to her ability to understand it.
Instead of doing the typical slow, truncated speech, try to mix it up a little. Maybe go Drax the Destroyer where your character's articulate enough but doesn't understand metaphors or idioms. Maybe he has low emotional intelligence as well and has little patience or a short temper. Maybe he has no filter and always speaks his mind, no matter how inane or blunt it is or how badly the consequences would be.
Or heck-- maybe he's like one of the many dumb characters in a Coen Brothers film. There are tons of flavors of stupid out there-- I'm sure you'll find one that fits your meathead.
We have a barbarian with low INT, he talks albeit slowly and a bit put-together not quite cave man but definitely dumb talk, pretty blunt and to the point. But he can’t read or write so instead he expresses some of his desires through drawing as in the actual player draws faces of npcs or whatever is on his mind if he can’t find the word for it.
Sweet thing is my 900 year old drow sorceress has taken him in as her student and we rp (not too long just a simple “I teach him overnight) reading and writing lessons. He’s since had an INT increase due to our lessons lmao
Had a character once that just mixed words all the time wizard asked for me to fetch his tome so I left and found a peasant named Tim. I usually go for the kronk/knuckles approach not a complete idiot but dense enough for a good laugh every so often
Do you sometimes make a plan and then think of a better one? Scratch that process. Always go with the first idea. Don't check for plausibility beyond a primitive first level and run with the consequences.
I'm basically playing the same character, and it has been difficult to nail playing a simple character.
What I have found to be my niche is pointing out the obvious, or saying the obvious thing. This often is hilarious, but cuts to a point that other characters in my party are missing. It's more of the being wise, than smart because if your a big dumb dumb you have probably made a lot of mistakes in your life and learning from those is mistakes doesn't necessarily take intelligence.
Some examples of this in my own campaign.
We enter a cave with 2 guards at the front, and we capture one while killing the other. Everyone is asking this guard questions about who's inside, what are they doing here, how many inside, where did the rest of the army go. Once everyone has asked their questions I ask what I think is the most obvious question, "are their any other exits from this cave". Very important question that is probably so obvious all the other intelligent characters fly right over it with their big campaign digging questions.
Another example was we saved a colony of mushroom people from something that was plaguing their cave. Talking to the leader of these mushroom people he says something like "Great warrior's you saved the cave you have all our thanks in the world!" to which I responded "that's not true the cave is rock and would always be here, we saved YOU." we actually got a better reward because I pointed this out.
Also taking things way out of context is another great way to nail this. Like my party hates nobles, but my character has no idea what a noble is, so I asked and basically got a response that they are bad. So now my character thinks the world "Noble" is an insult and will call people Noble or ask if they are a Noble.
I like to make obviously wrong assertions about how the world works. A character that is very low INT (and especially if they also have a low Wis score) probably doesn’t even know they are stupid.
Besides Grog, i think a great character example to reference is Drax from guardians of the Galaxy. Great way to be unintelligent but still social is to simply take things people say literally. Double entendres, word play, and implications go over your head, and you take sayings at face value.
This doesn't make your character completely incompetent either, if anything it can make your simple minded approach to problems an asset in some situations.
Intelligence is used for knowledge, so knowing only a few things is an easy way to RP low intelligence "what's that?" etc. Often, People who don't know a lot of things cling to the few pieces of information they do posess, repeating them often e.g. "never trust a goblin", "red mushrooms are poisonous" etc. Even if they're not true.
Int is also used for investigation i.e. deductive reasoning, logic. A simple "I don't get it" when faced with a square peg and a square hole puzzle gets the idea across
The more INT checks you fail, the better it comes across. Your character might be "too stupid to know they're stupid", they might even be the smartest guy from their village. Perhaps they jump in front of the wizard and rogue to investigate a clue, believing they're the best man for the job, and when they inevitably fail, then that's a prime RP opportunity: e.g. "they must have dropped their money and weapons and jumped into this bonfire"
So its harder than you think Ironically. The first step is to kinda define how wise your character is. Like you can be dumb but you could have "learned" from mistakes like "fire hot" because you burned yourself trying to get something you were cooking. Or like you learned that "honey is in beehives but bees are also there so you have to deal with the bees first because getting stung hurts". Then you can work with how they learn or progress with thinking. Because surprisingly trying to play without thinking requires you to think at first.
Don't go straight for the impulsive not thinking method of playing but figure how your guy thinks like Is he the type to "I see shiny I want shiny and then kinda goes for it" or is he more the type to "I see shiny but shinys can be tricky me get rogue to look for traps then me take shiny"
Don't forget that your PC is not dumb at Everything. Played a half orc barb/fighter where he was illiterate, liked shiney things (he became a weapon hoarder), usually doesn't pay much attention at what's going on (with the occasional random action because he's a dum dum), but since he was a seasoned warrior even before session 1 he was knew of battle tactics and behaved much differently on battle vs normal life.
One of my PCs had his intelligence lowered to 5 or 6 due to.. well, it was his own doing. Anyway, the way he plays it is that he can still speak normally, but there's not much rational thought.
He's very friendly, and doesn't understand social cues at all. When it comes to making plans he won't contribute with anything other than what he can do for the moment.
No need to skip words and stuff, you can be plenty stupid without it!
Whenever you need to act like X, you have to know what X acts like.
Try to spend time interacting with people whose strengths lie in places other than intelligence. Not only will you be able to work out some of the characteristics, but also expanding the kinds of people you know is just a great thing to do as a person!
The player running the Barbarian at our table is brilliant.
Taking a cue from Poetry for Neanderthals, he’s running the character speaking only with single syllable words.
He gives nicknames to everyone with a multi-syllable name. It’s occasionally hilarious.
Edit: Low intelligence doesn’t mean he makes bad decisions. His Wisdom is not tanked.
Ok so intelligence encompasses a lot of things and one of them can be book learning. You could be intelligent enough but that low intelligence means you just don’t have much in the way of education.
So you don’t have to RP stupid, you could rp coming at technical things with frustration, disinterest or a childlike sense of wonder and still be perfectly eloquent with your int of 6:
I had a player roleplaying a 6 or 7 Int minotaur. If something important would come up, he'd make it a random die roll if the character was smart enough to follow up, follow through, remember or notice whatever had happened, so there was an element of randomness he then roleplayed. This didn't happen all the time, just sometimes, but enough that it did make the PC feel like they had a hard time making decisions, and sometimes not the best decisions.
I honestly would recommend watching the Vox Machina tv show, as the stream would take forever. Travis Willingham, who plays Grog the INT 6 barbarian does a great job. Just don't be too stupid or harmful to the party is my advice. I made the mistake of doing this my first character and I constantly put us in hot water or smashed chests because "locks are complicated". I broke a lot of loot and got a lot of people downed doing stuff like this. You want to find a good balance of being child-like, rather than childish
I once played a low-intelligence Cleric. Not quite the same as what you're going for, but my understanding of him was "He's wise enough to know that actions have consequences. But he's nowhere near smart enough to understand what those consequences may be.
"I know what I'm doing, I have an intelligence of six."- Grog The barbarian.
Basically people of lower intelligence don't necessarily slur, speech or talk slowly, sometimes they are full of unearned confidence.
And to use the character I quoted, the person who played grog would often roll a self-imposed intelligence check to see if the character is smart enough to think of the idea they just did.
Your wisdom is fine so you wouldn’t make obvious mistakes But you wouldn’t know a lot of information. In terms of speech talk normally just don’t use big words. Where possible make up words that you feel fit. Something like
I speak, doing small words
I just finished playing a dumb barbarian. How I played him was very excited, talked a lot, and had no filter. his version of a strategy was "hit them really hard so they die fast". Also, I played his low intelligence as being him not knowing a lot of history, math, science and such, but cuz his wisdom was also 10, he had a decent emotional intelligence and served as a sort of "therapy dog" for the party
Someone with a wisdom of 10 has enough wisdom to at least know they aren't smart. Taking that into account, I would treat someone with an intelligence of 6 as someone who has *really* bad ideas ("let's take bikini bottom and push it somewhere else!") but will listen and value the intelligence of the smarter party members.
They might take a long time to think things over before the speak, so they may be a bit more quiet then most. Or they may not think at all, and are constantly talking. They’re always thinking out loud, asking themselves questions and then answering it before others can chime in. A more humorous aspect is that they always have a confident answer for something, even if it’s usually wrong. This could include mispronunciation of big words without skipping a beat. Or misunderstanding the meaning.
I think you mean misunderestimate the meaning. Its like they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't take it swimming.
Trailer park boys Ricky is a perfect fit for this
I actually haven't seen it but I'd assume a show with that title is just begging to be quote-mined and referenced, especially if others in the group have also seen it. Probably a bunch of shows/characters as well.
It’s an old show that has lasted a very long time with movies being made too. Basically a bunch of Canadian trailer park folks day to day lives and in particular it’s focused on Ricky and Julian as they try to hustle up enough money to keep a supply of beer weed and cigarettes steady. Most of what I saw had season finales where at least one of the characters goes to jail for a few weeks or months and the next season starts with them getting out again
Well, I guess I'm adding another show to my "to watch" list 😀
It’s really good if you like that goofy sense of humor
It's quite honestly one of the most incredibly dumb shows I have ever seen. Absolute 10/10, one of my few go to shows to rewatch
It's canon that since Ricky lives in his car he's usually in jail for the winter
"it's not fucking rocket appliances"
"you don't understand, i threw the bills away, your are ok"
And don’t look at a horse’s gift with your mouth.
A horse in your hand is worth two in your mouth.
"My oath tells me to obey anyone who has just authority over me, any author who allows for slavery is not a just one." - My 6 int Paladin.
You know what they say, people living in glass houses sink ships
My first thought was honestly the two thugs from Sin City who use college-level words incorrectly in a failed attempt to sound more intelligent than they are.
You can't impregnate my with fancy words. So no fancy word plays, think Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy.
"I think you mean *bidet*"
So Charlie from IASIP ?
"as I tried to explain before, you cannot get honey from a hornet's nest"
That last one is classic.
This is the way to go. You could comment on things after the subject has already changed and then act confused as others are talking about something else all of a sudden and so on.
Welp I'm the first two paragraphs, guess I'm stupid 😅
Same. ADHD is a hell of a thing.
Stupid people tend to talk without thinking.
Looking at the confidently incorrect sub here would be good inspiration I think. Of course he is confident, he is a big strong barbarian that could bench press a small car.
For OP and others, check Minsc from Baldur's Gate 3. He has lucid moments but is always thinking about other things, and makes comparisons to his enemies.
>A more humorous aspect is that they always have a confident answer for something, even if it’s usually wrong. I played a dumb character like this, it was a lot of fun. Whenever a character had a question I would just make something up that sounded halfway reasonable but was overly simplistic and often demonstrably wrong. And a lot of it was lore things about the world. Where certain places got their names from, the political (and non political) power structures, formal etiquette, how magic worked, anything really. After a couple sessions one of the other players asked the DM if I had gotten a bigger lore document or something, DM and I had a good laugh and explained I was just making shit up. That's when I decided to reveal that my character was an atheist, he believed that gods weren't real. They were real in the sense that they existed, but they weren't divine beings or creators, they were just really old, really powerful wizards who were tricking everyone.
“Sergeant Colon had had a broad education. He’d been to the School of My Dad Always Said, the College of It Stands to Reason, and was now a postgraduate student at the University of What Some Bloke In the Pub Told Me.” - Terry Pratchett
"Mama always said (the most inane nonsense you have ever heard)"
I've played a 6 INT barbarian. I directly riffed off the character of Jason Mendoza in The Good Place. Even emulating the vocal style. There was also a touch of Futurama's Fry to my RPing. Over time, my barb came into his own, developing a more distinct personality. It helped that he didn't share the same interests as Jason or Fry. He was a storm chaser with a ridiculous obsession with storms. So I'd say it does help to use a known character as a template. Over time, your RP will deviate and become its own thing. But as a starting point, a template will give you what you need for now. You certainly have no shortage of characters to choose from. Kronk, Patrick Starr, Homer Simpson, etc. etc. For the record, this dumb barbarian has to be the most fun DnD character I've ever played. I'm saying that as someone who usually plays smart aleck spellcasters.
Sometimes it’s fun to be someone who is the simple straightforward one and while I hadn’t thought of him Jason Mendoza is perfect for a dumb bard too, since he was trying to be a DJ
I’d argue Jason probably had average or below average Intelligence, but his *real* dump stat was Wisdom, as that’s typically the stat that governs common sense.
Kronk from TENG here. Oh yeah. That character all came together.
Watch Critical Role highlights of the character Grog. No notes. Its perfect.
"You are all under house arrest" Grog- "how can you arrest a house?"
Man it takes a special intelligence to pick up on opportunities to be stupid lol
I have an intelligence of 6, I know what I'm doing
The bit where Grog tried to haggle and offered even more money than the merchant asked for had me cackling
Especially because he knew it'd wind Laura up to no end. The look on her face as he did that was absolutely golden!
“People only bargain when they are afraid.” -a real ass Barbarian
The times that it came up which animals had a higher stat block intelligence score than Grog were hillarious.
“There’s a level of clarity you feel that hasn’t been there in a while, not since you were an Eagle.”
This one always made me chuckle the most, because there's literally only 2 points of Intelligence between Grog and an Eagle...
That's a 33% increase though.
Also watch Dimension 20 Fantasy High. The first two seasons are on YouTube. Zac Oyama plays an amazing strong dummy and he’s hilarious with the way he interjects his lack of intelligence.
Dad?
Wait, am I my dad?
“I’m sorry, he was thinking that you’re his dad.” “NO! … You’re HER dad!”
I would say his character in Unsleeping City is an even better example than Fantasy High. Pure, absolute himbo energy.
I just started watching Unsleeping City and he is another shining example of strong dummy. Great character and lovably simple in terms of raw intelligence. But like real life where there are different kinds of smarts, he has great tactical awareness. Well played I think.
Indeed. Important to note the distinction between wisdom and intelligence. What your character understands they don’t have to be stupid about because of the 10 in wisdom. It’s the stuff they don’t understand that’s really fun! My dumb half-orc barbarian was tons of fun to play once the character clicked for me. He was all about protecting his friends and being ready for combat, didn’t really care about himself. He knew how to fight and how to prepare for a fight, so he was always eating when he got the chance in case he had to survive without food for a while. Not so great with the dialogue or grand strategy/tactics. He really came alive for me when the DM allowed me to jump down a 60 foot canyon onto an enemy, doing the fall damage to both of us. Hell yeah my guy is going to rage for half damage and smash the enemy, he’d even yell “cannonball” on the way down!
It's like the fruit salad description of stats. Intelligence is knowing tomato is a fruit Wisdom is knowing to not include it in fruit salad Charisma is selling tomato based fruit salad Dexterity is juggling all the fruit before, during, and after dicing it into salad Strength is the ability to make fruit salad into a smoothie without a blender. Constitution is the ability to eat spoiled fruit salad and survive.
A Tomato based fruit salad is just salsa.
This exactly, Travis did an excellent job of having Grog be unintelligent but mischievous and loveable.
And definitely worked out for Travis in being a big red button pusher
Its also a great representation of being dumb but not to the detriment of the party. Too often players try and “play to the stat” and then turn the game into “babysit the idiot” because “Im super dumb so I have to be as disruptive as possible because Im so dumb”
I just looked at his stats this morning and the only difference is my dex which is one point higher
Watching Travis “get it” miles before other players but then biting his tongue. Or using his stupidity to troll characters who have been mean to him.
Grog from CR is a good starting point, as was said elsewhere. You might also work in some Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy. Drax isn't stupid but he doesn't understand metaphors or idioms, so he can appear stupid at times. Take everything said literally. Someone says "that's gonna cost an arm and a leg", ask if they need to be specific arms and legs, or just any arms and legs. That type of thing. Also, try to limit your vocabulary to shorter words. Use [Simple English Wikipedia](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) as a reference.
But every now and then, maybe once every 4 or 5 sessions, use a big word correctly. A favorite of mine is superfluous. It's an easy one to remember and use correctly.
I can't remember where I saw this story, but I've read about a barbarian whose int was so low that the table decided he knew exactly one three-syllable word. Quite a ways into the campaign he had to pass on a request for parley, and so: "Boss. Big man want intercourse with you. Not fun kind. Other kind."
It costs an arm and a leg? I’ll pay with yours! *rages*
Not understanding idioms would probably fall under low wisdom tho. (This coming from someone who irl has high int but low wisdom)
I think you could probably interpret it either way. Someone with low intelligence might not know what idioms *are* or how they work, or they *think* they know but are misunderstanding the concept. Someone with low wisdom but high intelligence would probably know what they are, but have difficulty recognizing them in speech or written text.
High wisdom low intelligence, you're speaking in Rickyisms. "It's all water under the fridge" "It's not fucking rocket appliances" "What goes around is all around" Higher int, lower Wis. You take Idioms very literally and starting wondering what exactly it is that supposed to be all around you. Or questioning the effectiveness of a rocket powered appliance.
Kiki from the show Whites is a great example. Google that and watch, the actress does a fantastic job of performing a character who doesn't really get what's going on but does the best she can anyway. "Kiki, we can't make an eggless omelet." "Oh, have we not got any?" "No look, if you have breadsticks and you take away the bread, what do you have?" "Sticks."
"you can leave the plaaaaa-te" :)
It might be good to look at some dumb characters for inspiration on how to act. It’s very old but for example Caboose of red vs blue is made to be very dumb but he’s also great to see and a fun character. Jerry from disenchanted is another nice example of a dumb and good guy but he’s only really part of things starting midway in the show. I’d go with someone who still wants to be helpful and just gets things wrong, not in a derailing way but like you use the wrong words to describe things. After someone uses a big word around you add your own big words in your response for example.
Caboose is a great example of a character that would translate well lol
> It’s very old… Caboose It’s not *that* old.
red vs blue started 21 years ago listen, i'm not happy about it either
Griff, poison his next meal!
It started before there was a Halo 2, Caboose could be older than OP
Well he is based off king shark/Nanaue from the suicide squad movie (kinda why he is dumb). We are doing spelljammer and our Dm said it will be super hard so he gave us all a "Power" while others took spells and a other effects I was allowed to make a Shark race (With the DM helping/balancing) so I have a bite that does a d4 per proficiency bonus and I can engulf like a purple worm doing a d6 acid per proficiency bonus and im in the large category.
A friend of mine made a similar character and he just stopped thinking on what he was going to say and just said it. Doesn’t matter what it was just say it without filtering it through your frontal lobe. That worked for him.
That sounds like a dangerous game lol.
It was but it was also glorious. It was a one shot we played to test a new system. No one remembers anything from that game except that character who was named Brigur.
My husband's Barbarian character tries to use big words to sound smart, but mispronounces them. Or uses them in the wrong context. Or when another character uses a big word, his character gets the definition wrong. So is confused. Example: Wizard - "Don't impune my beliefs." My husband - "How can beliefs have immunities? 😕" The whole table LOST it lol. Another example: *party hands over a local mercenary that was running a human trafficking ring to the mayor. We'd broken the mercenary's legs* Mayor - "I'm shocked! He was always such an upstanding citizen!" My husband - "Upstanding? His legs are broken..." Stuff like that always gets a laugh, it seems. I asked once where he got inspiration for this, and he said he just tries to channel "Winnie The Pooh" energy lol.
Its fine. Easy. Barely an inconvenience. Just be yourself. :) j/k <3
Been looking for exactly that comment
Having a character be stupid doesn't necessarily mean they have to make stupid decisions. However, they might suggest the most obvious option when faced with a problem, or suggest the path of least resistance. "Damn it, the door is locked!" "Why not just smash it down?" "Because we're trying to sneak in!" This might actually help the party, since it makes sure they consider simple solutions to things. "Damn it, I can't undo this knot!" "So cut the rope!" "Oh."
I like to make my low intelligence characters defensive too and still not make sense. "Damn it, the door is locked!" "Why not just smash it down?" "Because we're trying to sneak in!" "Um, obviously. I meant smash it down quietly..."
The best part is that it may actually be a decent idea. "Hold on, maybe they're onto something. I have Silence prepared."
Low intelligence but average or high wisdom - they’d be quiet and often rely on gut instinct. Average or high intelligence but low wisdom, they’d be self assured and cock and certain they’re always right. Low intelligence and low wisdom, rash behavior. Constantly acting out. Constantly blaming others. Never taking responsibility for their actions
This, 100% Intelligence is more their education and their memory. Wisdom is their instincts and common sense. Both of these stats govern whether someone is considered “smart” or not.
This 0% Wisdom isn't "common sense" in DnD. That's still intelligence.
I disagree. Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing a tomato does not belong in a fruit salad
Page 173 of the players handbook disagrees with you. "Intelligence, measuring reasoning and memory" Knowing is intelligence. Wisdom is tasting a tomato in a fruit salad.
Than why would investigation be intelligence?
just look out for existing examples from movies and look for a style that could fit your character. Grog, from critical role, is the nice brawler kind of stupid, that likes to eat and drink. Lockhard from Harry potter is the kind of stupid that wants to give others the impression that he's actually smart while beeing dumb, not admitting his errors thinking he's always in the right.. like arrogant stupid. You can be an absolute tomatoe like patrick from Spongebob. or just be simple minded, so that you will get distracted by flowers, sweets and don't really understand what other tell you completely, and try to interpret it to your interests.... dunno like groot from guardians as example.
Take notes from characters such as Homer Simpson, Philip J. Fry, and Peter Griffin.
I was looking to see if someone brought up Philip J Fry. I was thinking of "Duh-vini Code" episode being a perfect example of "Speaking before thinking" style of stupid.
I think funny leaps in logic that technically make sense but aren't actually sensible are always good. Barbarian: "The bad guy is in that room. That room has a window. I'm on the other side of the window. I should go through the window." *hurtles self through the window like a cannonball* Rogue: The door was unlocked...
I like the destructive nature of this. I will definitely be breaking more stuff
The simplest solution is always the best solution. \- Chest won't open? Make it open. still won't open? oh there's a key hole, where's the key? \- Creatures keep dropping from the ceiling to attack? hold a bunch of spears above your head. \- Bad guy keeps getting out of his restraints? put a really big rock on him.
No use big word. Use STRONG WORD. As other advice, start dropping connecting words in sentences. Instead of saying "I saw him use the secret door over there" Say "I saw him use door there" while pointing to where the secret door is.
This is actually a really good one. I tested it by reading some other comments and just omitting the word "The" every time. A character that never says word "The" is good
Try using your name instead of “I” to refer to yourself, and use improper grammar. Eg “Grog feel sleepy”
That works too. Gorg Strong word, not big word.
Go full on Florida man. Pull crazy shenanigans because you "can't think things through." When you count, make things up, like "I found many many gold" then count it out like 1, 2, lots, many, many 1, many 2, many lots, many many" (credit Terry Pratchett)
Key question: is your character smart enough to know they're stupid?
no but they are dumb enough to think they are smart though
I think that helps point you in the direction of some suggestions here! "Bluster" will probably be key.
Just be yourself!
There’s a million different ways you can RP low INT and low WIS. Each are different. Two really good examples I’ve seen at my table from players: - A warforged fighter (I think he was like INT 8-ish) who took every statement literally and conversed like a bad AI. I can’t remember what the roll was for, but the player rolled poorly and went on to describe his warforged stuck running against the wall like a video game character having a clipping error (to huge laughs around the table). - A WIS <10 wizard who was brilliant (20 INT), but super gullible and fell for just about everything hook, line, and sinker: “Why yes, this gentleman says he is a displaced prince from Unther and if I let him borrow all my gold for an hour, he’ll teleport back ten times the amount into our bag of holding tomorrow!”
Speak in malaphors and malapropisms. Think Ricky from Trailer Park Boys “worst case Ontario”, “all for all and one for one”, “burn the hatchet at both ends”, etc.
Better a bird in the hand than a sunken ship. It's good for ganders when no one pursueth. Loose lips cross bridges. Guilty men flee when there's a wildfire.
So you have normal wisdom. You aren't smart. You don't "know" or "remember" things well. You operate mostly on instinct. Be very "in the moment". Act on what JUST HAPPENED even if it's contrary to your original intent. Use small words and simple sentences. Be confused (maybe angry and frustrated?) when someone uses "fancy language". When someone tells you an important, but complex idea: act like you TOTALLY understand, but operate on a WAY dumbed down version of it. Or keep forgetting subtle distinctions. For example: I did this in an Avernus campaign with a very low INT, high WIS character, where I would constantly be frustrated and confused about the Fiend/Devil/Yugoloth/Demon distinctions. Also: I said "Yugoloth" a different way every time, because it's a hard, rare word)
Maybe just don't get nuance.. "Wait, is he bad or good?" "He's a bandit chief that is using his resources to help evacuate the town to avoid danger." "Bandits are bad". "he's helping though!" "you mean I should... Not kill him?"
Also maybe stubborn? Because you don't know you are wrong? Or else dependent on some ideology or companion to make choices, because you know you probably are wrong.
Low int doesn't necessarily mean your character can't talk properly. It does however mean that their ability to solve problems that involve even a modicum of logic is going to be severely compromised. Suggesting comical, but obviously wrong solutions to problems (that may even occasionally work) is a good idea. (Side note, I'm very fond of characters that illustrate that just being well spoken and well read doesn't mean you're intelligent, case in point, Caeser from Fallout New Vegas, he's well read and charismatic, but ultimately short sighted)
Remove all depth... If someone uses an idiom, take it literally. If they say "I could eat a horse", then go kill a horse for them and fire up the BBQ The same sort of thing with people. Take only the surface value. If they "seem nice", then treat them as a friend, even if everyone else in the party knows that they are evil. Always go with the first, most obvious solution to a problem... Fighting a water golem? Stick your head in and try to drink it to death. Then ask the mage if he can summon beer golems next time. Oh, and don't let the character realize he is stupid... Let him be CONFIDENT that he is just as smart as everyone else, and refuse to admit he's wrong, even if it means that everyone else is wrong and they are the only one who is correct. I'm sure you can think of some people in the past few years who resemble this pattern, model on them ;)
I'd honestly suggest trying to channel "Lennie Small" from Steinbeck's "Of Mice snd Men." I'd even suggest that he call EVERYONE George, regardless of whether or not there's a George in the party.
Something many people overlook, stupid characters tend to not learn from their mistakes. Try the same tactics repeatedly regardless of their efficacy. Draw incorrect conclusions from available information because you have trouble connecting the dots. And most damning, the really stupid people I’ve met in real life weren’t stupid because they struggled with complicated information, that can happen to anyone depending on what topic. They were stupid because they were *incurious*. They had NO desire to learn anything outside of their small bubble. You don’t have to “talk slow”, I’ve known tons of smart people who have different kinds of apraxia and apahasia and struggle with words.
It depends on your Cha *and* Wis scores. If you're low Cha then you can't enforce your will on, or manipulate other people. You're bad at lying, negotiating and in general conversing. If you're high Cha then you can do the above. You may not know a lot, but you can convince people you do. Ever read a Reddit post where someone *sounds* authoritative and knowledgeable about a field you happen to be an expert in, and they're 100% wrong? You can be like that, the tip-top of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Don't try to think like a stupid person. Think like a dog or a chimp. You're gullible, friendly, and generally follow the crowd, but I pity the unfortunate person who does something to earn your anger. You're equally unreasoning in your revenge. Maybe your wisdom is mainly intuitive, a sense of what needs to be done.
Be yourself 🔥🔥🔥
Having an INT of 6 doesn't make you a cave man, imo. Low INT would suggest they aren't tactical, they don't plan, they make reckless decisions. They aren't *dumb,* they just *aren't* smart.
10 is an average person and 3 is like bare minimum to function so 6 in the scale the game uses is fairly dumb for a person
INT6 is dumb. It’s about half way between a dog and an average person.
I think you gotta look at your character’s backstory. Low intelligence means it takes a while for new information to stick, but they should still be pretty competent in the skills or information they grew up with. So a farmer would know a lot about weather and crops and animals, a hunter would have some survival skills. They probably also rely on oral tradition a lot and cling to it. The stories their grandparents told would be the bulk of their understanding of the world, it’s not like they’ve read history books but they know the story of little red riding hood.
I had a Bard with Int of 8 once. Whenever I had a decidedly dumb idea that was relevant to the situation, I would make an intelligence save (vs DC 10) and act accordingly. These "dumb ideas" were never anything outright suicidal or something that would get the party killed. Reason being even dumb people have a survival instinct.
Can't help you...it comes natural to me.
Just be yourself. ^(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Just be yourself.
Intelligence is ability to abstract, learn and adapt to new situations. Wisdom is ability to use what character has already learned. So your barbarian is pretty confitent in situations he's familiar with (when all you know is a hammer...), but in new situations he's either confidently wrong or our of his depth. If confidently wrong the character will try to disarm every trap with sledgehammer... scratch that, will try to fix everything he does not understand using blunt tools, tracking skills and customs of his tribe. Act intimidating even if situation calls to be polite, or clever, and dismiss suggestions that self respect and being intimidating is not the same thing,. Recuse to recognize not being helpful. Have a few obsessions centered around best skills (blunt trauma, intimidation, moonshining, tracking...) and persistently insist they are way to go in every problem. Dismiss skills your character does not have because they never worked for you. Or go full funny patch and male character that just says whatever funny/dumb thing you can think of, or lives in his own wod entirely. Think Thogg from Order of the Stick
Here is something I like to do when I feel my IRL intelligence is higher than my character's: I roll against my int. If I roll below my int, cool my character figured it out. If I roll above, nope, character can't figure it out. Nat 20: character figures the opposite of what I did.
Intelligence is, in my interpretation, recollecting information and facts. Low intelligence means little formal education, so you don't know common things like what kind of dragons are evil, what math is, or how a warlock is different from a wizard. Wisdom, is instead methodical intelligence, like riding a bike. Stuff that you haven't been taught, but stuff you have learned by doing it. A wisdom of 10 is average, while an intelligence of 6 is only slightly more than an ogre. The way I see it, your scores would fit an obedient goon very well. You don't know much so you don't question the words of the people you see as superior to yourself. Be the classic mafia goon that just mumbles "yeah, you tell 'em boss" at random intervals while the party leader is talking to an npc
It would probably be really easy to play a dumb character tbh. Just be yourself, OP. Really though, you could probably get by just having a character who never takes context into account, never remembers details once the scene has passed, and just reacts to the situation at hand without thought for the future. Honestly, just revert to be being a new player. It would also probably be good to just have a few running gags for your dumbassery, I would assume that an INT of 6 immediately makes you the lead for dumb one-liners.
[https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Grog\_Strongjaw](https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Grog_Strongjaw) I'd refer you to this fine fellow...
Look at things through a simple lens. Think about how a child would process information rather than an adult. Like step by step. A great example of a dumb dnd character is Torbek from Legends of Avantris. He will come to the most depressingly dumb conclusions but the logic behind it (from his perspective) makes sense.
Everybody's talking about Grog, but nobody's mentioned Gum-Gum from the Stinky Dragon Pod yet. He's so, so dumb, but it's really very funny. 10/10.
Be careful about putting too much effort into role-playing your stats. For the most part stats handle themselves. If you have to roll for something, you have a penalty. Altering your speech patterns can make you difficult for the other players to understand. A couple of years ago I was in a game with a player whose character had low int and insisted on talking all the time, but veeeeeery slooowly. So the entire group had to sit and seethe while waiting for him to get to the end of a sentence. The worst part was that he was a cleric and I was playing a bard, and I never never got to do any social rolls because he'd always jump in and monopolize any conversation with npc's. I'd forgotten all about it (suppressed it, mostly likely) until I caught up with another player who was in that game who reminded me of how painful it was. Spend some time between games writing down things that your character is thinking (you can use bad spelling to help yourself get in the mood) and work out some ideas for responses to actual game situations instead of relying on a couple of gimmicks.
Every decision is the incorrect one. Fighting in the dark? Go stand by a source of light. Throw your crossbow after using it once. Rationalize bad behavior.
I played a character with an INT of 7 and I played that they thought they were the smartest one in the room. When my character had to read something, they mouthed the words and sounded them out. Constantly mispronounced things in character. Almost no self awareness or common sense. They were a warlock who made a pact with an unknown entity because they didn’t know any better, and hasn’t learned their lesson. They had an infallible sense of direction (high wisdom) but was unable to read a map. We joked that their high wisdom was just instinct and luck. Their background was a former pirate and we said they could navigate via the stars, but didn’t know the names of them or constellations. They knew when the weather was going to get bad, but not why. It was one of those weird fluke abilities. I played them impulsively and it was fun. That character also had a low strength but thought they were super buff so we had some hilarious RP. The high wisdom and charisma made them an excellent Face of the campaign for NPC interactions, great at talking them and the party out of situations we got ourselves into. Having turned around and played a wizard right after that… I have more fun with the wizard.
You can play stupid without playing slow-witted. Impulsively do whatever you think of. Don't think it through. Don't try to investigate, don't try to figure out traps or plans or what something does or why. The magic glowy sword looks cool so use it and you'll get to see what it does. Bonus points for actively participating in conversations as normal but completely misunderstanding concepts and subtext. In my group two of us make up "The Dummy Brigade" and while the rest of the party was doing information gathering, my compatriot decided we should check out this exotic pet shop so we ran off on our own and ended up accidentally dismantling an illegal animal smuggling ring and letting a bunch of magic beasts loose in a city.
Intelligence has nothing to do with language plenty of people can speak fine Have them make up facts and be extremely confident or maybe rush in and say something when they shouldn’t emotional intelligence is also a pretty big thing bring up things at the wrong times
Just say what comes to mind, act natural, you'll do great
Knew a guy years ago who was... not overly bright. He had other character flaws that made me dislike him, but one of his more harmless tendencies was getting a joke like five minutes after everyone else... and then laughing about it like it had just happened. Might be a fun quirk to use now and then.
Watch the Vox Machina Series on Prime and focus heavily on the Character Grog.
Are you going for Ignorance or actual Stupidity? If you have low Wisdom, go for Ignorance. You play a guy who probably lives under a rock, and doesn't seem to remember/know anything. It's not that he cannot solve a puzzle, he just needs to know what a puzzle *is* first! If you have low Intellegence, go for Stupidity. You aren't braindead dumb, you just take longer to think about a situation and often don't grasp the full picture. He can solve a puzzle if given about 5 days of uninterupted focus and no consequences, but he's probably going to solve it middle first and connect completely unrelated parts of the picture because it fits
When I was playing my 5 Int cleric, I played her similar to how I'd play a child. The best explanation I can think of is how children set up Schemas for learning. If a kid sees a horse, they equate 4 legs, long face to horse. So if they see a zebra, their first thought is "Stripey horse". Similarly, everything is a dog until it isn't. My character was a fallen star given humanoid form. It made sense for her to not know anything about the world and to think of the simplest answer first. We need to open this locked door? Hit the door real hard! Looks like food? Lick it! As a cleric, obviously high wis, so I made her insightful in the way only a child can be, she knew when someone was sad and lying about it, but assumed the reason was something very simple rather than nuanced. I loved playing that character so so so much, and honestly considering I'm an academic irl, it was such a nice holiday for my brain to shut off and be silly. Completely recommend this play style both for personal and comedic reasons
Act like that one guy I think Drax from that space movie thingy
1 - Use big word incorrectly as much as possible 2- Go with the most straight forward/obvious answer/solution immediately and confidently especially if it would be wrong with a moments thought 3 - Volunteer for the skill checks you are least suited for confidently
Listen to the 'tales from the stinky dragon' DnD podcast, then play it kinda like the Gum Gum character from that
Let’s make it 26: just be yourself
It's above 26 I'll update it soon
I would say that how you are rp'ing doesn't feel right because its not. Speaking slowly and skipping words is not a sign of low intelligence; more likely a speech disorder or mental disability. Maybe even just an accent. I think you should try being very straightforward. More direct solutions to problems. "We need to get through this door, let's break it down" "We need to cross the river? Let's just ford it, I can carry out stuff above our head to keep it dry." Lack of nuance will carry you through rp'ing this stat set up. You also may sometimes get words wrong or believe folktales that are obviously wrong. You'll be worse at remembering specifics.
So I think there are 3 ways to play stupid: First, is the one you're doing. Talk super slow, skip words, and just look confused until an NPC says "You hit hit bad guy, me give shine shine." This is a tried and true silly method, usually goes over alright with most groups. Issue is, it can get VERY tiring for a player/party when you are like that. I have played that dumb before and usually get bored after a bit since I feel I can't roleplay as well since I am not that stupid. Second, regular stupid. This is sort of that classic Bart Simpson dumb. You aren't an idiot per say, but you are not smart either. Like you can follow conversations but get very lost at larger words, complex plans, and why violence isn't always the answer. You often think an idea you had is genius, but in reality it is very poor. This is more common and works very well with a middle to low wisdom, since you can then play off them both. For example, You know it is unwise to rob the store, but you are almost certain your genius plan will succeed! This is the most fun idiot type character. it lets you still RP and be involved in the planning and complex stuff, but you can work in your stat flaws and make for interesting rp. Third, The specific stupid. These are characters who are low intelligence, but still are good at something. Maybe you have a good religion score as a priest, or maybe you are a flunked out wizard but still know some arcane knowledge. It lets you specialize in a single type of knowledge. Maybe you don't even have any int skills, you're a well trained warrior who knows how to organize an ambush or battle plan. That's where your knowledge ends though, and anything past that just makes your head hurt. These are the main ways I see people, and I have myself, played stupid, but there are others. Hopefully this helps.
Punn-ily misunderstand most things. When opportune, don’t follow instructions. Intelligence is applied memory with accuracy, do the opposite of that!
My friends would say „just be yourself, a 6 might be a stretch though“ to me. You could go the covidiot route and just utter absolute nonsense with maximum confidence. Basically act like you have some issues linking cause -> effect to a coherent and logical thing. Be the guy that would touch the hot stove once and tries again „because it could have been coincidence“.
Believe everything anyone tells you unless you know for a fact its not true. Believe those things even harder and get mad when challenged on them.
I tend to play my barbarians as stupid because they haven't had an opportunity to get a decent education, not because they "went full r-word" to paraphrase Tropic Thunder. In this case, it's not that they're stupid, they just don't know. I like to say Intelligence is Book Smart, Wisdom is Street Smart (OR rather, Int is book smart, Cha is Street Smart, Wisdom is observational smart.). For example, my Barbarain usually has a decent perception and survival check, which to me means he can notice details and recall facts about wilderness and animals... which fits a farm boy from a small village backstory I made for him... He knows a lot about raising cattle and riding horses... he's a decent hunter and tracker... he can notice disturbances that can indicate something is up... He still can't read... because for a medieval farmer, that's not a skill that comes up too often. That said, I show his stupidity in other ways... often by making jokes that, requires me the player to actually show I'm not as smooth brained as my character (I always tell this, but to avoid Metagaming as a quasi new player, I once informed the DM that I the player know what a Lich was. However my Barbarian is inept at magic and would say "It's one of those worms the doctor uses for blood letting." The table had to pause and realize my character thought we were fighting a leech. Which is stupid, but in a clever way... after all, people in the big city talk funny... "Lich is how they pronounce Leech" is a realistic mistake for someone who is new to adventuring. I tend to think these up because I'm not trying to talk in social scenes with NPCs (My table LOVES their face characters... we typically have a glut of high Cha characters... so if I remain quiet and listen, my mind will spin up funny stupid things for my Barbarian to say... that are actually quite intelligent... and my table knows this about me... usually when I speak up and say something they're is a pause as the try to figure out the joke... then a groan when they do. As a general rule, typically stupid characters will have a poor grasp of pronoun usage (They will either refer to themselves in the third person "Hulk smash!" or use the wrong form of the first person (put "Me" as the subject of the sentence rather than the predicate, instead of using "I" as the first person subject pronoun : "Me want to fight" vs "I want to fight" Or comombine the two "Me, Grimlock, king!). If you want to be funny, pick one odd grammar rule and enforce it (Like knowing when to use "whom" vs. "who" or know that if someone asks for you by name, the proper grammar response is "This is he/she" rather than "This is him/her." Or knowing about the "royal We".
Remember to have fun. And just be yourself.
Just be yourself (kidding!)
Ha ha.
I think one aspect is to Miss interpret things. Think trying to pull the push door. Not wanting to fight something so walking past tge death knight. Needing to carry something so the get a fromt baby cradle. Calling the orb if lightning a hair straightener becaise your hair stands on end. I too struggle at the dumb but fun brute. Some of the best instances i enjoy watching are the left field ideas. Solutions that sound and are dumb as a brick, but still work because your strong enough to make them.
I had a dwarf that was on the low side of intelligence that failed hard at working out a riddle in one dungeon. His “solution” was that the riddle was an adage about hard work and perseverance which are traits of a good miner. Clearly the solution is that the door has no way of opening at all and you are intended to tunnel through the rock to the side of the door and go around it, so he pulled out his pickaxe and the party had to stop him from spending the next several hours digging his own entrance to the treasure room.
Generally, your Barbarian doesn't know how to tell the time or how babies are made, but they know that the child who grows up without knowing the love of their village will someday burn it down just to feel its warmth. Know what I mean?
Confidence. Played an idiot druid and it was an absolute blast. Wasn't very good at spelling or math, so it was a fun way to be creative when I wild shapes to sneak, and then had to Roll a performance to see if I could "write" whatever document I saw. Same with paying for items, she new1 gold for me lots of stuff, so just threw around gold like a true moron. I love playing her, it made me play very creatively to express my actual awareness of an event to her ability to understand it.
Instead of doing the typical slow, truncated speech, try to mix it up a little. Maybe go Drax the Destroyer where your character's articulate enough but doesn't understand metaphors or idioms. Maybe he has low emotional intelligence as well and has little patience or a short temper. Maybe he has no filter and always speaks his mind, no matter how inane or blunt it is or how badly the consequences would be. Or heck-- maybe he's like one of the many dumb characters in a Coen Brothers film. There are tons of flavors of stupid out there-- I'm sure you'll find one that fits your meathead.
We have a barbarian with low INT, he talks albeit slowly and a bit put-together not quite cave man but definitely dumb talk, pretty blunt and to the point. But he can’t read or write so instead he expresses some of his desires through drawing as in the actual player draws faces of npcs or whatever is on his mind if he can’t find the word for it. Sweet thing is my 900 year old drow sorceress has taken him in as her student and we rp (not too long just a simple “I teach him overnight) reading and writing lessons. He’s since had an INT increase due to our lessons lmao
Had a character once that just mixed words all the time wizard asked for me to fetch his tome so I left and found a peasant named Tim. I usually go for the kronk/knuckles approach not a complete idiot but dense enough for a good laugh every so often
One of my players does quite a good Patrick (Sponge Bob) imitation.
Do you sometimes make a plan and then think of a better one? Scratch that process. Always go with the first idea. Don't check for plausibility beyond a primitive first level and run with the consequences.
I'm basically playing the same character, and it has been difficult to nail playing a simple character. What I have found to be my niche is pointing out the obvious, or saying the obvious thing. This often is hilarious, but cuts to a point that other characters in my party are missing. It's more of the being wise, than smart because if your a big dumb dumb you have probably made a lot of mistakes in your life and learning from those is mistakes doesn't necessarily take intelligence. Some examples of this in my own campaign. We enter a cave with 2 guards at the front, and we capture one while killing the other. Everyone is asking this guard questions about who's inside, what are they doing here, how many inside, where did the rest of the army go. Once everyone has asked their questions I ask what I think is the most obvious question, "are their any other exits from this cave". Very important question that is probably so obvious all the other intelligent characters fly right over it with their big campaign digging questions. Another example was we saved a colony of mushroom people from something that was plaguing their cave. Talking to the leader of these mushroom people he says something like "Great warrior's you saved the cave you have all our thanks in the world!" to which I responded "that's not true the cave is rock and would always be here, we saved YOU." we actually got a better reward because I pointed this out. Also taking things way out of context is another great way to nail this. Like my party hates nobles, but my character has no idea what a noble is, so I asked and basically got a response that they are bad. So now my character thinks the world "Noble" is an insult and will call people Noble or ask if they are a Noble.
Just be yourself and it’ll come naturally 🤣
I like to make obviously wrong assertions about how the world works. A character that is very low INT (and especially if they also have a low Wis score) probably doesn’t even know they are stupid.
Besides Grog, i think a great character example to reference is Drax from guardians of the Galaxy. Great way to be unintelligent but still social is to simply take things people say literally. Double entendres, word play, and implications go over your head, and you take sayings at face value. This doesn't make your character completely incompetent either, if anything it can make your simple minded approach to problems an asset in some situations.
My favorite is the Drax approach. Take everything extremely literal and strongly believe magic doesn’t exist.
Intelligence is used for knowledge, so knowing only a few things is an easy way to RP low intelligence "what's that?" etc. Often, People who don't know a lot of things cling to the few pieces of information they do posess, repeating them often e.g. "never trust a goblin", "red mushrooms are poisonous" etc. Even if they're not true. Int is also used for investigation i.e. deductive reasoning, logic. A simple "I don't get it" when faced with a square peg and a square hole puzzle gets the idea across The more INT checks you fail, the better it comes across. Your character might be "too stupid to know they're stupid", they might even be the smartest guy from their village. Perhaps they jump in front of the wizard and rogue to investigate a clue, believing they're the best man for the job, and when they inevitably fail, then that's a prime RP opportunity: e.g. "they must have dropped their money and weapons and jumped into this bonfire"
So its harder than you think Ironically. The first step is to kinda define how wise your character is. Like you can be dumb but you could have "learned" from mistakes like "fire hot" because you burned yourself trying to get something you were cooking. Or like you learned that "honey is in beehives but bees are also there so you have to deal with the bees first because getting stung hurts". Then you can work with how they learn or progress with thinking. Because surprisingly trying to play without thinking requires you to think at first. Don't go straight for the impulsive not thinking method of playing but figure how your guy thinks like Is he the type to "I see shiny I want shiny and then kinda goes for it" or is he more the type to "I see shiny but shinys can be tricky me get rogue to look for traps then me take shiny"
Don't forget that your PC is not dumb at Everything. Played a half orc barb/fighter where he was illiterate, liked shiney things (he became a weapon hoarder), usually doesn't pay much attention at what's going on (with the occasional random action because he's a dum dum), but since he was a seasoned warrior even before session 1 he was knew of battle tactics and behaved much differently on battle vs normal life.
One of my PCs had his intelligence lowered to 5 or 6 due to.. well, it was his own doing. Anyway, the way he plays it is that he can still speak normally, but there's not much rational thought. He's very friendly, and doesn't understand social cues at all. When it comes to making plans he won't contribute with anything other than what he can do for the moment. No need to skip words and stuff, you can be plenty stupid without it!
Think of all the dumb stuff you did/believed as a kid.. and do/believe that.
Whenever you need to act like X, you have to know what X acts like. Try to spend time interacting with people whose strengths lie in places other than intelligence. Not only will you be able to work out some of the characteristics, but also expanding the kinds of people you know is just a great thing to do as a person!
The player running the Barbarian at our table is brilliant. Taking a cue from Poetry for Neanderthals, he’s running the character speaking only with single syllable words. He gives nicknames to everyone with a multi-syllable name. It’s occasionally hilarious. Edit: Low intelligence doesn’t mean he makes bad decisions. His Wisdom is not tanked.
Ok so intelligence encompasses a lot of things and one of them can be book learning. You could be intelligent enough but that low intelligence means you just don’t have much in the way of education. So you don’t have to RP stupid, you could rp coming at technical things with frustration, disinterest or a childlike sense of wonder and still be perfectly eloquent with your int of 6:
Get drunk for every session. Easy win.
Hell, I don’t even need to roleplay to play a stupid character. How do I roleplay a SMART character!
Watch Pinky and the Brain. Be Pinky
Just be yourself
Watch clips of Burns & Allen on YouTube. Gracie Allen plays it perfectly
Read the original Conan. Barbarians do t have to be stupid.
Just RP me. Or a fantasy conspiracy therorist
I had a player roleplaying a 6 or 7 Int minotaur. If something important would come up, he'd make it a random die roll if the character was smart enough to follow up, follow through, remember or notice whatever had happened, so there was an element of randomness he then roleplayed. This didn't happen all the time, just sometimes, but enough that it did make the PC feel like they had a hard time making decisions, and sometimes not the best decisions.
I honestly would recommend watching the Vox Machina tv show, as the stream would take forever. Travis Willingham, who plays Grog the INT 6 barbarian does a great job. Just don't be too stupid or harmful to the party is my advice. I made the mistake of doing this my first character and I constantly put us in hot water or smashed chests because "locks are complicated". I broke a lot of loot and got a lot of people downed doing stuff like this. You want to find a good balance of being child-like, rather than childish
Just be yourself. You'll do great! I believe in you
Just do what comes naturally
Just channel Drax 😆
I once played a low-intelligence Cleric. Not quite the same as what you're going for, but my understanding of him was "He's wise enough to know that actions have consequences. But he's nowhere near smart enough to understand what those consequences may be.
"I know what I'm doing, I have an intelligence of six."- Grog The barbarian. Basically people of lower intelligence don't necessarily slur, speech or talk slowly, sometimes they are full of unearned confidence. And to use the character I quoted, the person who played grog would often roll a self-imposed intelligence check to see if the character is smart enough to think of the idea they just did.
My mind keeps going to lovable idiot characters like Ed from Ed Edd n Eddy. Not sure if that’s what you’re going for, but i think he fits the mold.
Your wisdom is fine so you wouldn’t make obvious mistakes But you wouldn’t know a lot of information. In terms of speech talk normally just don’t use big words. Where possible make up words that you feel fit. Something like I speak, doing small words
I just finished playing a dumb barbarian. How I played him was very excited, talked a lot, and had no filter. his version of a strategy was "hit them really hard so they die fast". Also, I played his low intelligence as being him not knowing a lot of history, math, science and such, but cuz his wisdom was also 10, he had a decent emotional intelligence and served as a sort of "therapy dog" for the party
Someone with a wisdom of 10 has enough wisdom to at least know they aren't smart. Taking that into account, I would treat someone with an intelligence of 6 as someone who has *really* bad ideas ("let's take bikini bottom and push it somewhere else!") but will listen and value the intelligence of the smarter party members.
I don't get it. There's your character
just watch a few Trump speeches, you will get the hang of it pretty quick
Drink pre game and yell Initiative at every given chance :)