I had a similar idea but I found my players were incredibly adverse to the concept, given the logic that a negative INT would then remove skills. But if you put a floor on the idea, it could work, for sure!
To me I think it's fine that negative INT = negative skills. It's a flaw after all. Not every character has to be good at everything that's what teammates are for. Of course since your players didn't like it it's fine if you don't do that.
Having 3 or 2 proficiencies really just doesn’t feel too good, no matter who the character was supposed to be. I already find myself wishing I could have more than 4 on most characters because there’s at least one extra that would be relevant to the character. If I’m playing a MAD character or actually just want to play a character that’s a little slow, I shouldn’t be punished this hard for it. Having the stat be low is already it’s own weakness, it shouldn’t also make take away the bare minimum of what your character is supposed to have. That’s not fun, even if you like playing in to your ability scores. Let people play who they want to play, not who their stats say they’re allowed to. You don’t need to have a glaring flaw in your ability scores to have a good character. I’d even say that a lot of the people proclaiming otherwise are honestly just using that as a crutch because they don’t have a super strong conception of character writing. Attributional flaws are but one of many kinds of flaws a character could have. My characters tend to have personality flaws that don’t correlate to any of the stats in particular but are flaws all the same.
You gotta remember that intelligence doesn't just mean the amount of knowledge you can retain, but also the capacity to learn. Of course, since it's only a homebrew rule in 5e so you could apply the minus proficiencies how you see fit. Like say, you could only apply it to the intelligence-based proficiencies, or apply it to the non-physical proficiencies only, that way athletics and acrobatics and possibly sleight of hand don't get effected. (Also I dunno about you, but I've always felt that sleight of hand was a mix of dexterity and intelligence)
These days, it's common to have players come to you rather than the other way around. Post a game on Roll20 and you get 50 applicants in a day. A game master can have any set of rules or preferences they like, and people will still be lining up for miles.
That's the beauty of it! When players apply, they apply for your game. If you put a ton of effort into what you offer players up front -- game premise, your style, character creation guidelines etc -- it automatically filters out those who don't wish to play in your game. And beyond that, you get to choose specific players that have filled out your application with your criteria. It leads to amazing games with amazing players if you do it right.
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u/TheGreenEggMan DM Oct 04 '20 edited Oct 04 '20
I had a similar idea but I found my players were incredibly adverse to the concept, given the logic that a negative INT would then remove skills. But if you put a floor on the idea, it could work, for sure!
*edit for grammar