On Intelligence

There's an enemy hidden amongst RP writers. A vile fiend who pretends to be their closest friend, but all the while sucking the very life from them and everybody who they collab with. This friend is someone you all know, and you all want, but must be avoided at all costs.

This enemy is named Intelligence.

Did you know that in Bleach canon, the captains (and presumably all shingami) are ranked by six stats from a scale of 0 to 100? These six stats are as follows: Offense, Defense, Strength, Kidou, Agility and Intelligence. Here at Bleach Channel, we're doing our best to emulate this. Offense and Strength are pretty much incorporated into the Hakuda and Zan stats. Defense and Agility tend to go hand in hand, so those have been all but combined and Footwork has been separated to distinguish it. And Kidou is a no-brainer.

So, what of Intelligence? Why is there no intelligence stat?

Well, the simple answer is that most people don't feel obligated to post their character as "unintelligent". In fact, exactly how do you rank intelligence anyway? Captain Kurotsuchi and Kisuke Urahara are obviously smart guys, but most of their intelligence shows in the form of plot devices such as the Hougyoku or Mayuri conveniently having a deus ex machina for anything Szayel Aporro Granz can throw at him. They're smart, but only because the writer has bothered to withhold information from us and then spring it at the last second as a big reveal. Before Aizen mentioned it, did you know that the Hougyoku existed? And before he said so, did you know that Kurotsuchi could take out his own organs and replace them with "dummies"? If not, revealing these as proof of "intelligence" doesn't count; if we'd known about it beforehand and got surprised by later, that's when it would count.

So, does this mean that you can't have your character be "smart"? Absolutely not...but you may not want to. As I said before, Intelligence is your enemy...not your friend. You'll find yourself having a lot more fun writing a character of average (or below-average) intelligence than one who's supposed to be smart all of the time.

When you describe your character as "smart", that puts a lot of pressure on you to constantly prove it. You'll write your character introspecting and thinking more than actually doing things. You'll make your character analyze everything everyone says with a fine-toothd comb, and he or she will fail to trust 70% of the people they meet. After all, smart people tend to be curious and suspicious, so your character will question everything. And so will you.

Not only does this make writing a chore, since you want to make your character deeply ponder every single thing that happens, but your collab partners will wonder just when the heck you'll just shut up and throw a punch. And, speaking of punches, that brings me to my next point: Intelligence in fights.

Most people fight to win. After all, isn't the very nature of a fight to crush someone violently? Well, yes and no. Here at Bleach Channel, there's no threat of PC death (NPCs are a different story of course, but we frown upon doing so without the RPer's permission), so there's no pressure for your character to always win a battle. If your shinigami finds himself face-to-face with an Arrancar of higher power, you don't have to crap your pants and worry that Johnny won't make it home to his orphaned brothers in Rukongai. Johnny will be just fine, so just enjoy the ride.

However, when you RP an "intelligent" character, this character will also be driven to win. Or, at the very least, to succeed. You'll instinctively want your character to do the smartest, most tactical thing in order to win or gain an advantage. There is nothing inherently wrong with this--everybody should fight with a game plan. However, you DON'T have to make your character do everything right. Have you ever seen a boxing or a mixed martial arts match where both fighters did the smart thing? Even someone who's considered to be a fighting genius can do something stupid in the heat of battle. Your character should be no exception.

When I RP in a fight, what I want more than anything is for both myself and my opponent to have fun. So, I don't mind having my character do something utterly brainless or ignorant every now and again. This takes pressure off of me to always try and be one step ahead of the other opponent, and it keeps the fight rolling. Who cares whether I win or not? It's just a game.

Intelligence, people, is not your friend.