Dumb Muscle

Basic Information

Dumb Muscle are characters who are big, strong, tough - and none too bright. While a common stereotype in fiction, it's also not infrequent in gaming, usually for play balance - someone who put all his points into improving his strength and toughness won't have much left over for his mental attributes. This sometimes extends to entire races, such as Dungeons & Dragons half-orcs, or the half-giants of Dark Sun. Finally, these are very common as antagonists. A typical example are ogres - they can be very dangerous foes in a melee, but their limited intelligence makes them easy to outwit.

See Also

• Genius Bruiser
• Hulk Speak
• Smash Mook
• The Big Guy
• The Brute
• Top Heavy Guy

Sources

Bibliography

1. TV Tropes Wiki entry

Game and Story Use

• While there is nothing wrong with having lots of Dumb Muscle antagonists in a story - that's what they were invented for, after all - if one of them gets more screen time than a single fight, try to give them some interesting quirks to make them memorable despite their limited intellect.
  • That goes even more for player characters, of course. A character who is only defined by his muscles is boring - both to play, and for the other players to watch!
  • They are also hard to roleplay - most players will find it difficult to limit themselves to playing a moron and will tend to come up with their usual standard of play regardless.
    • Conversely, some players will run any character as a moron, no matter what their stats. Ironically these people never seem to want to play dumb muscle…
    • If you do roleplay a very low intelligence character well, the rest of the party may complain… as your PC picks up random shiny things, eats unattended food and meddles with things that catch his eye.