D&D and Philosophy

A Philosophical Analysis of Intelligence and Wisdom

Justin Kitchen

Dungeons and Dragons is a tabletop roleplaying game that anyone can play using a pencil, paper, dice, and their imagination. During the game, players navigate their characters through a fantastic world to fight monsters, investigate mysteries, solve puzzles, delve into political intrigue, and hunt for treasure. If faced with a difficult challenge, the Dungeon Master (or, DM) may ask the player to roll a 20-sided die (or, d20) to see whether their character is successful and to resolve the outcome. Success can be more or less likely depending on the character’s ability scores, which modify the base roll of the d20. There are six ability scores: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. These ability scores are important to the game for several reasons. In commemoration of D&D’s 50th anniversary, I would like to spend some time reviewing two abilities that seem the most philosophically interesting: Intelligence and Wisdom (abbreviated as INT and WIS in D&D). How are these D&D abilities different from how philosophy—specifically, western philosophy—has treated intelligence and wisdom? What can we learn from how Dungeons and Dragons treats these important ideas?

History of “INT” and “WIS”

The original Dungeons and Dragons game published in 1974 was co-created by Gary Gygax and David Arneson. It was preceded by a long history of rules published by board and miniatures wargaming companies along with homemade rules shared freely in the wargaming fan community. To make a long story short, there were two immediate influences on D&D. The first was Gygax’s own game (created with Jeff Perren) called Chainmail (1971)—a medieval miniatures wargame with rules for mass combat, man-to-man combat (including jousting!), and also supplemental Tolkien-inspired fantasy elements: dragons, wizards, dwarves, elves, orcs, hobbits. The second influence was Arneson’s personal unpublished games that he ran with a set of rules assuring players that “anything can be attempted.” (Jon Peterson relates this in Playing at the World, 2e (2024)). Arneson called his series of games the “Blackmoor Campaign.” In Blackmoor, emphasis was placed on players acting out their fictional characters making decisions to overcome obstacles. Gygax enjoyed this aspect of Arneson’s game so much that he invited Arneson to help him with what came to be known as “the world’s greatest roleplaying game”— Dungeons and Dragons. The point here is that roleplaying—doing things that your character would do rather than what you might do—within a fictional world is what made D&D distinct at the time and it is still what makes the game so enjoyable 50 years later.

For the purposes of this essay, it’s worth emphasizing that the ability scores listed above—including INT and WIS—can help players roleplay since it gives some insight into what their character would do in any given circumstance. A character with high Charisma may be personable and attractive; but low Dexterity might mean they’re clumsy; low Constitution and Strength may imply the character is sickly and soft spoken. But what does it mean if a character has low INT? Should the player roleplay as an idiot or do they just lack a formal education? What if they additionally have high WIS? Should the character be an idiot with reliable gut instincts or with a lot of worldly experience? From my own gameplaying experience INT and WIS in D&D are subject to a wide variety of interpretations, but each interpretation will have implications to roleplaying. So these abilities deserve more careful examination.

The Difference Between “INT” and “WIS”

Clarifying the difference between INT and WIS within D&D would benefit from looking at game mechanics (briefly, I promise!). Besides informing roleplaying, ability scores are used for three things 1) Ability Checks, 2) Saving Throws, and 3) Spellcasting. I’ll deal with these in turn.

1) Ability Checks

When confronted with a challenging task, the DM may ask players to roll an Ability Check with their d20 to see if their player is successful. For example, if a character wants to push open a heavy door, the DM may ask the player to roll a “Strength Check” in which they must roll a 15 or higher to succeed. INT and WIS have their Checks as well.

The DM may ask the player to make an “Intelligence Check” if their character is trying to use logic to investigate a problem or if they’re trying to recall some fact about history, the natural world, religion, or the arcane. So INT seems to help with cognitive skills in inferential reasoning and memory.

The DM may ask the player to make a “Wisdom Check” if their character is trying to attend to their immediate environment—track or domesticate an animal, treat a wound or illness, navigate though terrain, read someone’s body language, perceive something unusual in their environment. So WIS seems to help with more practical skills of perception and navigation through the natural world.

2) Saving Throws

When confronted with a sudden and impending threat, the DM may ask players to roll a “Saving Throw” with their d20 to help guard against damage or harmful magical effects. For example, if a trap is triggered the character’s Dexterity may help them save against it; the player rolls a “Dexterity Save” to resolve the outcome.

An “Intelligence Save” is not common, but it can be requested in the face of “psychic damage” according to the descriptions of some monster attacks (like the “devour intellect” attack of the dreaded… intellect devourer!). If the character fails their save, the psychic damage could stun the victim—sapping their ability to walk, talk, and defend themselves. From this, it seems INT is also required for very basic cognitive functioning.

A “Wisdom Save” is more common and is used to guard against certain conditions such as being charmed (say, by fey elves), hypnotized (say, by vampires), or frightened (say, by dragons). From this it seems WIS also involves will-power, courage, mental integrity, and perhaps moral integrity (more on that later).

3) Spellcasting

This is how ability scores relate to certain character “classes” (or occupations). Different classes use different abilities to use magic. Wizards use Intelligence to cast spells apparently because wizards learn magic through their studies and use magic by recalling incantations from their spellbook. Clerics and druids use Wisdom to cast spells. Apparently because clerics and druids learn magic through more intuitive channels —through their relationship with a deity or with nature. They can’t learn new spells at will and switch them out as wizards do, but clerics and druids grow stronger in their spellcasting abilities as their relationships deepen. This is consistent with our examination of ability checks above.

Intelligence seems to correlate to basic mental functions, memory, ‘slow’ cognitive processes, and logical inference-making. Wisdom seems to correlate to something more ‘fast’, attentive, perceptual and hands-on.

Philosophical “Intelligence” and “Wisdom”

In this section, we’ll get a handle on how the D&D versions of “Intelligence” (INT) and “Wisdom” (WIS) fit into the technical usages of “intelligence” and “wisdom” in the history of Western philosophy.

The English word “intelligence” is from the Latin intelligentia and the English word “wisdom” is from Old English. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that “wisdom” is actually cognate with the word “wizard” (from the Old English for “wise one”). But this last piece of trivia is confusing for D&D gamers since we know that wizards are actually known for their Intelligence rather than their Wisdom.

Regardless, the languages of Western philosophy have historically been Greek and Latin—not English or Old English. So if we want to examine the philosophical aspects of INT and WIS, we can continue by finding their Greek and Latin equivalents.

Starting with INT and keeping in mind how it’s been portrayed in D&D, a good candidate would be the philosophical term epistēmē. For the Greek philosopher Aristotle, epistēmē is a cognitive state that rests on a network of rational justification (perhaps as a result of careful empirical research or theoretical discourse). This sounds similar to how INT involves inferential reasoning (supplemented with memory). The Roman politician and philosopher Cicero translated epistēmē as scientia and this is where we get the English word “science.” Again, this aligns with how wizards are portrayed in D&D: they’re students of the arcane, committing the fruits of their research to spellbooks.

INT being comparable to scientific knowledge (epistēmē) is also corroborated when one introduces the one other class in D&D that uses INT as its spellcasting ability: the artificer. It’s not one of the core classes, but has become quite popular over the years. Artificers are described as “masters of invention” who “see magic as a complex system waiting to be decoded and then harnessed in their spells and inventions” (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, (2020), p. 9). Wizards and artificers are scientists in the manner they foster and apply scientia to their spellcraft.

But doesn’t INT correspond with the Latin term intelligentia? I say no. The way that intelligentia was used in Western philosophy doesn’t actually make it a good candidate for INT in D&D. Cicero first used intelligentia in a technical sense as a translation for the Greek term noūs (in his commentaries on Aristotle’s work). And, for Aristotle, noūs does not involve inferential reasoning—justifying one belief with reference to another. For Aristotle, noūs represented a kind of intuitive rational thought not resting on any further justification; it’s described in his Nicomachean Ethics as a kind of immediate intellectual perception (1140b-1141a). So it appears that intelligentia is comparable to how WIS is portrayed in D&D, but not INT.

Besides noūs, there are other candidates for WIS that echo the way it’s portrayed as practical or hands-on. Sometimes the Greek term phronēsis, is translated as “practical wisdom” in English philosophical texts to capture the way it’s applied to action. But in his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle presents phronēsis as specifically “concerned with action about what is good or bad for a human being” and aimed at “right action” (1140b). This implies that it’s inherently something enjoyed by good people, and the more  phronēsis one has the more ethical they are. This may be reflected somewhat in the way Cicero translated this term as prudentia, from which we get the English term “prudence.”

It would be hasty to discount the term phronēsis for these reasons though. First of all, it’s plausible that WIS grants some degree of moral integrity; we saw this in how “Wisdom Saves” may prevent characters from having their agency compromised through charisma and fear. Moreso, perhaps it would make sense to say clerics and druids—whose spellcasting ability is WIS—are inherently more ethical (“good”) than other classes. This is not how Gygax & Arneson envisioned them in the original D&D or subsequent editions (clerics could serve an evil or dark deity and druids could embrace the morbid or chaotic aspects of nature), but I do think that this is a very fruitful area for both roleplaying and philosophy. For example, an “evil” but wise cleric or druid may criticize the conventional definition of “good” and argue that their Wisdom grants them deeper insights into morality itself. Such a player may draw upon traditions like existentialism or postmodernism to enhance their roleplaying. On the other hand, a philosopher may be prompted to ask “How would Aristotle navigate circumstances in which a wise person may be deemed ‘evil’ according to conventional standards?”

Moral alignment has been integral to D&D since its inception. Today, a player has nine options—different combinations of  good, neutral, and evil with lawful, neutral, and chaotic. It would require another essay to discuss the philosophical assumptions and implications to these categories, but I would just note that a character may change their alignment over time. Any transition is determined by their in-game choices and any choice should be partially influenced by their ability scores. This makes the possibility of WIS influencing a character’s ethical stance not only likely, but inevitable over the course of a D&D campaign.

Before concluding this section and the essay itself, I should give an honorary mention to sophia. Those familiar with philosophy may have expected this Greek term to be a good candidate for WIS since “wisdom” is a common translation of it (the Latin counterpart is usually sapientia) But these terms pick out a very, very special cognitive state for Greek and Roman philosophers that defines the project of philosophy itself (“philosophia” is literally “the love of sophia”). It’s portrayed as a holistic state achieved only by the normatively perfect human, the Sage (sophos, sapiens) and is not something that we should expect any character to enjoy (unless, perhaps, they have maxed out both their INT and WIS). I’ll leave it at that.

Concluding Thoughts

So here are my preliminary conclusions. It seems that INT is comparable to scientific knowledge (epistēmē, scientia) and WIS is comparable to both cognitive intuition (noūs, intellegentia) and practical wisdom (phronēsis, prudentia). According to most Western philosophers, all these traits need some degree of reason (logos, ratio), since they are exclusive to rational animals like us humans (in D&D, playable species are limited to rational “humanoids” like humans, elves, dwarfs, etc.). But one’s reason is applied differently in each case. INT uses reason to provide systematic justification of one’s beliefs and arrive at sound conclusions whereas WIS uses reason in tandem with one’s perceptual capacities to intuit conclusions about one’s immediate environment and about how one should act.

After this survey I’ve also concluded that if a character lacks INT, this does not imply that they are an idiot. Rather, they are not adept at drawing true conclusions from the available evidence or otherwise justifying their beliefs with good reasons. As long as their WIS is high enough, they can come to true conclusions about the world through their direct engagement with it.

There’s likely more to be said on the topic, but I’ll leave it to the D&D gamers to hash out. Just remember the first rule: have fun.

Justin Kitchen teaches philosophy at California State University, Northridge and is the co-founder of the “Los Angeles Stoics” non-profit that works to promote the study and practice of philosophy among the general public. His work centers around virtue ethics and virtue epistemology, drawing often from both Stoic philosophy and Indian Buddhism.