[Gulnyr]

I happen to have a lot of experience with this...

First, though:

SuperMunch: Freldo's a smart guy, (14 Int on a Bard), and he surely could make some sense out of what Dumb-as-a-Stump signs

I have to disagree with this. Whether it's a formal sign language or a rudimentary collection of signs, sign language is a language. Being highly intelligent doesn't mean a character would understand the swish of an arm or the flash of some fingers any more than he would understand a Dwarven toast or Goblin jeer. A more intelligent signer, though, might be able to connect with a 'listener' in a way that communication could be possible. A less intelligent signer would be much harder to understand. As Dorganath pointed out:

Dorganath: A low-INT character is going to have trouble communicating at all, whether it's in words or in some form of gestures that may make sense to him but not necessarily to anyone else.

Now, my character Jennara doesn't talk much. When she does speak, it's in a whisper. She has the Ear for Sign Language, but that hasn't always existed. So, she has a lot of "simplified" signs that have developed through trying to roleplay a mostly-silent character.

Let's say there's a group on it's way somewhere and Jennara wants to go along:

*points to herself, points to the group, points a finger on each hand and moves them together*

"I, you, together"

Of course, I don't tell anyone what it means, in a whisper or a tell or any other way. They have to figure it out.

All the simplified signs (as opposed to the complex signs of Sign Language) I use were developed with a little thought through roleplaying. If anyone wants to play a character who can't or won't speak, I seriously recommend emoting the actions of the character when trying to communicate with others. Communication is slow and it won't be very complex, but it's the only way to go to truly stay in-character. It's a lot of fun, even though it takes some effort and patience.

The situation here brings in some conditions I didn't have to face with Jennara. Jennara has an above-average Intelligence, so she can purposely try to emote signs that her target audience will understand. A less intelligent character might only know one way to sign and have no concept of others not understanding. Also, Jennara can speak; she would just prefer not to most of the time. She can decide when continuing attempts to sign are going nowhere and move in for the whisper. A character who cannot speak isn't going to have that luxury, and the choice to be mute should be played out fully in-character.

SperMunch: I think that Redhawk should be more conscious of this, Stump has a REAL problem with communication, you can't just pretend it doesn't exist just because game mechanics allow it.

That's a very good point. A mute character with a low Intelligence is going to be hard to play as far as communication goes. There are the hard way and the easy way to deal with it. The hard way is to really get into it and stick by the character concept. There won't be a lot of meaningful communication with a character like that, but that doesn't mean the character can't be involved in some good roleplay. It will just be tougher.

The easy way to resolve the problem is to revise the character concept. If you don't really want to play an unintelligent character that can't communicate well, then don't. It's not fair to you or to other players to 'cheat' your way around a character's flaws because NWN will let you.