Long Story #5: Intelligence is a Dump Stat (Part 1)

Long Story #5: Intelligence is a Dump Stat (Content Tags: Brain drain, mental regression, physical regression, Diapers, Pantspooping, Pantswetting, Humiliation, Age Switch, Role Reversal, Surrealism) "You sure you want go with that? Leaving your 'Intelligence' at one seems kind of extreme...You could make some adjustments, shift some points--" "Its a dump stat, man. I'm playing a barbarian, why would I need to put points into intellect? Let the wizard do all the thinking and I'll do all the smashing, that's what the high strength score is for." His dungeon master gave him a weary look, but ultimately shrugged at how the player had decided to allocate his starting stats. "Sure, man, if that's what you want. I guess your younger brother can take the puzzles and all that junk." Barry looked satisfied and straightened his character sheet by tapping it against the table. The teens had gathered tonight to start a tabletop campaign: Ralph was their dungeon master, Wendy was the rogue, Nick was the paladin, Terry was the cleric, Barry was the barbarian, and Alex, Barry's ten year old little brother, had irritatingly tagged along to be the wizard. Alex was a whiny pain in his ass, but all that whining was what had compelled his parents to insist that Barry bring him along. Alex was kind of awkward and dorky, so he had trouble making friends his own age as it was, and when the few he had were unavailable, then Barry found himself with a tag-along. It wasn't worth trying to argue with his parents about it either. Once they gave in to Alex's bullshit, then they rarely withdrew that decision in. In Barry's humble opinion, they spoiled and coddled the boy rotten; that's why he continued to act like a big baby, fussing to get things he wanted. "Hehe, looks like my character is smarter than yours, Barry. Guess I'm the brainy brother now!" Alex giggled as he compared their character sheets. Barry rolled his eyes and smirked, "You'd better hope our characters don't reflect our real selves, or did you want to play a wizard that sleeps wearing plastic pants?" The biting comment went virtually unheard by the rest of the group, who were broken into their own pre-game conversations, but it registered well enough with its target, who began to grow as crimson as a tomato. Alex gently whined and pitifully slapped his little hands against his older brother in a bid to quiet his secret-spilling tongue. It was hard enough to be the 'baby' in a group without things being looked at more literally when it came to his nighttime attire and what was below his pajama pants on a nightly basis. Barry snickered, happy to see he could still rile the brat up so easily. Soon, all the friendly chatter came to an end, and it was time to start the campaign that their dungeon master had spent so much time on. As with many great stories, it begun in a tavern. Their party assembled, all conveniently sharing a similar goal. Like any great quest, there was a mysterious bauble to obtain and a villainous cretin to vanquish. The first stop on the group's tour of the realm was an arcane tower, where a minion the antagonist was supposed to dwell, and with him, information on the whereabouts of the artifact they sought. A small handful of minor scraps had already proven how powerful Barry's barbarian was; he might have been dumb as a rock, but that twenty in strength was coming in handy to devastate the encounters thus far. Up until the first puzzle. From a meta perspective, the puzzle wasn't all that difficult. Barry had tried to give some input for the party's answer, but he'd been brushed off. Barry himself was pretty good at puzzles and all manner of mental games, but he had to be reminded that his character was basically a drooling moron with a club. Barry scowled, but bit his tongue. He didn't want to be accused of metagaming, even though he personally thought it was bullshit that his character couldn't really participate. He grumbled something about how easy the answer actually was, and his brother suddenly spoke up to steal his response. "..So clearly we need to switch the two granite statues so that they match the pedestal's color!" Barry gawkwd at Alex, and then looked even more surprised when the rest of his friends spoke up to praise the wizard's 'cleverness', as if Alex hadn't just metagamed himself by using outside knowledge. Nobody seemed to notice him seething, save for Alex himself. "..Umm, but nice job knockin' down the door earlier, big bro." He offered with a toothy grin, "But you should probably leave the thinky stuff to me. Don't want you, erm, your character I mean, to hurt their noodle." Barry gave an icy glare, but said nothing else as his friend group laughed and the game continued. Further up the tower they went, the less useful Barry felt his barbarian was becoming; there were more puzzles and riddles than he'd expected, and the combat encounters were beginning to favor a more complex approach than just smashing the enemy. Everyone started to crack jokes about his barbarian, and what a dullard he was, which Barry knew he shouldn't be insulted by, but there was still a strange sting. He might not be his character, but there was still a connection between the two, and his little brother was especially getting too smug for his liking. They finally reached a midpoint miniboss and Barry was determined to regain some credibility for his character build. He moved his barbarian figurine on the table up toward the malicious maiden of magic mischief that they'd come across. "I confidently approach the sorceress, with my weapon drawn!" Barry announced, before going to speak in character. "Wench! You will tell us where to find Morgana, or you will taste defeat at my hands!" The dungeon master chided him gently about his character sounding too cognitive, but didn't waste too much time in replying as the maiden: "Hold your tongue, you miserable whelp! Now, the rest of you...You dare let this brainless beast of a man speak for you? This *drooling* buffoon? Put a leash back on him and change his muck-mashed garments." The table erupted in laughter and Barry felt his face get red. "Oh, come on! He's not friggin' retarded! He doesn't drool and crap his pants!" The boy exclaimed, which prompted his brother to pipe in. "Muck-mashed garments! Hehe! Your character has a poopy diaper!" That garnered a second mirthful round of laughter, with Barry just getting more angry. Ralph picked up Barry's character sheet, looking it over, and then he opened up the 'Player Manual' to compare some notes. "Hmm...Sorry Barry. Says right here that a 'one' in intelligence means that the character suffers intellect-based incontinence." Barry blinked, waiting for Ralph to laugh again at his own lame joke, but the dungeon master just looked stone-faced. "Stop bullshitting around, man. It doesn't say that!" "It absolutely does, man. Here, take a look." Ralph handed the book across the table, so that Barry could see for himself. Barry squinted at the page, first thinking that something was wrong with the print, why else were these words so hard to read? He got to the intelligence score chart though and went to the very bottom to find where his Barbarian should be at: It was right there, in the column describing what a stat with that score was capable of. Heavy incontinence, drooling, booger eating, juvenile speech...And if there were any doubt, on the opposite page, there were some illustrations. The top picture was of a wizard with a hefty tome and a pair of spectacles, below was a barbarian with a vacant look, drooly mouth, snot bubble, and a large cloth diaper that had been drawn to be exceedingly full looking. How had he never noticed this illustration before? Or that the two examples bore a passing resemblance to him and his brother. Confusion painted on his face, he closed the book and frowned, determined to raise his barbarian's intelligence stat this session with some method. His little brother instead took the reigns on speaking to the sorceress, and the battle soon began after a fruitless conversation. "...She casts repellent force on the brainless barbarian in front of her!" Ralph announced, tossing dice behind his screen. "I should get a modifier, I should have a feat for dodging something like that.." "No, your smelly diaper is too cumbersome and you take a penalty to movement. You need a sixteen or higher to dodge the attack." Barry blushed again and came up short on his roll, leading his barbarian to get pushed back several squares and fall on his 'squishy bum'. As he went to move his miniature, he had to rub his eyes at what he saw...The plastic figurine now looked like the picture from the manual! Lumpy diaper, drooly expression...How had he not noticed that before? When his next turn came around, the rogue and cleric were both in a bind, so he said that he was going to get up and try using one of his feats to free them from the maiden's magic grip. Ralph shook his head and prodded his finger at the manual again. "Penalty of ten. Since you were knocked on your butt, your character has to overcome being distracted by squishing around in their own dirty diaper. Says right here that its one of the penalties for an intelligence stat like yours." His friends began to snicker again and Barry frowned. Had he really never paid attention to the finer points of the stat system before? He'd thought that intelligence wouldn't come into play at all with a beefy barbarian character, but it seemed to be hindering him at every turn! He failed the roll, and he failed an additional roll to resist loudly gushing about how good his 'poopy diaper' felt to squish around. He was less than useless in this fight, he'd become a total clown! His brother on the other hand used his turns to set up a play that even Barry had to admire for its cleverness; the magical maiden was defeated, and she even confirmed that Morgana waited at the top of the tower in her mystical research lab, and that she knew precisely where the artifact they sought was located. Cheers went around the table for Alex, congratulating his intellect in their grueling battle, while some cheap shots got directed at their party's own dirty barbarian. Adding insult to injury, after their cleric had healed the party, Terry had begrudgingly turned his attention to Barry's character and conscripted the help of the wizard to remove the smelly 'movement penalty' around the warriors waist. "Just like real life, huh, bro?" Alex quietly quipped to Barry. The older boy snarled and pinched his little brother to stop him from talking any further. Alex knew better than to talk about Barry's diapers! It was so embarrassing! ...Wait, was that right? Hadn't he come to his friend's house in boxers? He shifted in his chair and felt an undeniable bulk underneath his jeans. It was definitely an adult diaper, a fairly thick one, and he could tell it was somewhat wet. Not too surprising considering all the sodas he'd been drinking. It seemed right, sort of...Barry had always suffered from insufficient toileting, that's what his memory was telling him at least, but a nagging part of his mind was telling him how wrong this was. Hadn't he just been teasing his brother earlier about wearing a diaper to bed? Or wait, no, his brother must have been the one teasing *him*. It all seemed so confusing. The game continued on, with the next floor being another puzzle. Barry was determined this time to contribute to the group, and to prove that his character wasn't some drooling dunce. He put his d20 on the table with a noisy clack, "I can solve this. A puzzle like this doesn't require some kinda rocket scientist!" His friends looked at him and Barry could swear he felt the condescension emanating off of them. The dungeon master gave him a weak smile, a pitying one, and gently nodded. "Well...I mean, you can certainly *try*. You'll take a penalty on your attempt, of course...Difficulty of fourteen." Barry growled and rolled his eyes. He had to roll to even *attempt* an answer? He took the die in his hands and began to tumble it between his palms, before letting it roll onto the table. "...That's a one. Critical fail. Your barbarian takes ten points of psychic damage, and..." Ralph rolled a die of his own, "...In your mental strain, your barbarian slobbers and heavily soils himself." More derisive laughter at his own expense, and then his little brother again swooping in to solve the puzzle and save the day with his brainy wizard. Barry was distraught and regretting his character choice, while also wishing his so-called friends would lay off and be a little bit nicer to him. One by one, those friends began to wrinkle their noses and exchange looks with eachother. Ralph cleared his throat, "Uh, why don't we take a ten minute break...Grab drinks, stretch our legs, use the uh, bathroom...?" The teen trailed off, glancing in Barry's direction. What was that about? And what...What was that horrid odor? It was Barry's turn to turn his nose up, and as Alex got up from his own chair, he gave his brother a nudge on the shoulder. "..Hey, bro, I think you need to freshen up." Freshen up? He'd put deodorant on before he came, so what was Alex on about? Barry began to stand up and then understood what was getting hinted at; there was something hot and sticky pressed all over his buttcheeks. When his barbarian had suffered psychic damage, he wasn't the only one to make a dung-pie! Barry had pushed a big icky pantload into the adult diaper he had taped on. Barry grabbed his backpack and quickly waddled from the playing table, his face smoldering nearly as much as his messy rump. Unzipping the top as he went, he could already see a few large diapers inside the bag, alongside powder and wipes. "...More like *tard*barian, right?" He faintly heard behind him after he'd gotten through the doorway, which was met with jovial chuckles. This was so embarrassing! Why'd he have to go and crap himself during their game? It was bad enough that his character was an idiotic pantsfiller, but now he was just adding fuel to the fire. Barry barely managed to get cleaned up and rediapered in the brief break that they had; he came back to the table and sat down, the smell of poo now replaced with a strong wafting of talcum. His friends gave him a bemused look, but didn't comment on his prior indiscretions, though it did appear that they'd been happily chatting with his obnoxious baby brother. What twisted mess was this? He was floundering socially with his own group of friends, while his dorky little brother was flourishing? Barry always had to apologize for having to bring him, but now they were all buddy-buddy with eachother? This evening just kept getting stranger and stranger. The campaign soldiered on, with each floor of the tower offering new challenges that tested all of the party in varying ways. Barry still wasn't contributing all that much, since every encounter seemed to be about more than just sheer physical power. Comments from his friends were getting more biting, a mix of mockery and subtle resentment. Finally, hours and hours into the session, the group had reached the top of the tower and entered into Morgana's alchemical laboratory. Ralph painted a picture with his words, depicting all the bubbling tubes and strange specimens. Morgana however was not anywhere in sight. Their rogue rolled a perception check on what the various flasks and vials were supposed to be, and apparently they were supposed to be attribute-altering potions and elixirs. Wait, this was perfect! Surely among them must be something that could increase Barry's intelligence score by a few points! "Is there anything that tells us what each potion does?" Ralph smiled behind his screen, "Sort of. Each vial has a picture and a riddle below where they're held." Great, more riddles. Barry sighed and folded his arms, "W-well, do I see any pictures of like, a brain or something?" "Roll for perception, I'll add up your penalty for intelligence." Barry rolled a ten. That must be worth something! He looked eagerly at his dungeon master, expecting some useful piece of knowledge here. "You find three potions that seem like they could do what you want. One blue, one red, and one yellow. Which one do you drink?" A better idea would have been to have a teammate help him narrow down his options, but Barry hadn't been thinking very straight tonight, so be rushed into it and said that he'd drink the red one. "Gulping down the bitter brew of the flask, your barbarian suddenly starts to feel even more bereft of intellectual thought. You've consumed a potion of mind mutilation!" Ralph announced to his aghast player, before he rolled more dice, "...And you soil yourself again." Barry was fuming, but he also was starting to feel a little lightheaded. Why was this game so complicated? Why couldn't they just play something easy for once? The teen didn't seem to realize he was starting to drool on himself. Kyle and Terry looked somewhat irritated at yet another bad move, and one of them leaned over to whisper to Alex: "..Look, I know he's in special ed or whatever, but can you tell him to think before he makes a move?" Alex looked a little annoyed too and whispered back, though perhaps too loudly, "If he tries to think too hard, he'll just dump in his diaper again. Not my fault he's a retard." That word sounded familiar and vaguely hurtful...Had he heard it a lot at school? No, too many syllables for something that'd be said in his 'special' classes. Barry would have to figure out what his brother meant later though, for now, he still needed to find a way to increase his intellect! "Ngh..Drink more!" Barry announced, wanting to try the next potion out of the three. "You start to hear rumbling from behind a door in the laboratory. You only have enough time to try one more before Morgana comes in." One more? But what if he was wrong again? He'd just have to try something...Anything! "Duhhh...Yellow! Hehe, like pee-pee!" His brother groaned in embarrassment at the mushbrained mumblings of his mentally vacuous sibling. The look on Barry's dopey face betrayed the fact that he was also going 'pee-pee' in his huge diaper right now. "The yellow potion turns out to be an elixir of eternal youth! Your barbarian begins to shrink and the years tear away his muscles until he's been reduced to a scrawny little boy. Your physical stats have been cut by over half." This was a disaster! Not only was his barbarian an idiot, now he was a stupid little kid too! "But before anything else can happen, Morgana finally makes her appearance! She decries your attempts at toppling her treacherous tower and begins to attack with bolts of lightning!" The team began to take their turns to fight the sordid sorceress, and even early on, it was evident that she was much more competent than the mini boss they'd fought earlier in the session. Once it'd come back around to Barry, the only choice he could consider was drinking the final bottle. He reached out to his figurine, which was now a little barbarian boy in a diaper who was sucking his thumb. "Dwink...Blue!" He announced, now sitting lower in his chair than before. "...You imbibe the azure ambrosia and begin to feel your mental faculties returning; it's a potion of brain growth! You add ten points to your intelligence stat." Ralph told him, looking down at the current number. "...Though since it came after the first potion, and you went into negative numbers, that brings your intelligence score to...Six. Calculating other factors into play, your barbarian is still pretty, uh, dimwitted." After playing most of the game at a '1', being promoted to a '6' felt like becoming a genius! ((Too long for one post!))