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(08-20-2015, 02:21 PM)Nebbs Wrote: You can roleplay what you want. Who is anyone to say if someone can RP, or even to judge their results? This is not a competition.
And yes you can do it with a degree of believability. The OOC use of things like google and the fact that in a fantasy setting the rules of reality are loose and not clear. There are also numerous archetypes to choose from and copy. Such as playing a conjurer as House, or the bard as the Dread Pirate Roberts, or the rogue as Vala Mal Doran. All witty characters.
And why is "witty" excluded from a dumb person anyhow? Take Sheldon Cooper and Penny, I would say Penny is the witty one of the two.
What I find more interesting is a witty and intelligent player. This comes through even in dumb characters. It is this that allows people to find a match that they can spark off and create RP fire. In my experience.
Well, unfortunately, the people who are to say if someone can RP and judge their results are the other players.  People can RP what they want.  At issue is our reaction as an audience. That's a big problem, because, like it or not, the entire point of person-to-person interaction is judgement, and RP is a social activity.
The OP has said, very directly, that the player stated that their character was a genius, and then the character very obviously was not. This is very important, because this isn't all that uncommon.  Genius, wit, etc, that's all based on interaction and comes from the audience.  We, as roleplayers, are also not in any position to be told what a character is when the character can't be backed up with actual writing.  It doesn't make you a bad person to not want to RP with someone whose RP grates on your nerves.  This dissonance is one of the major reasons why that has nothing to do with metagaming and bleed.
So, you can RP whatever you want, but you have no room to complain if you're frozen out of RP (also what commonly happens to these players). Â You are all judging (and being judged) every time you speak in public, including your RP skills. Â Hell, we're all judging each other here and trying desperately not to seem like we are. Â Such is the nature of social interaction.
Characters who actually seem genuinely witty and intelligent are generally written by witty and intelligent players. Â And, to be fair, it's not a pandemic of people who are punching above their weight class. Â Players tend to write characters as witty or intelligent as they can manage, which isn't what I'd call genius but not certainly dumb.
But people who are not themselves witty or intelligent at all certainly aren't going to write characters who are convincingly witty or intelligent. Â Generally, if you have to tell someone what they're supposed to think, as in the OP, you aren't convincing anyone. Â I simply don't think it's right to tell other people they have to take the character description as the gospel even when they are reading that it's inaccurate in the actual RP.