Character Intelligence Versus Player Intelligence

[WhiteShark]

Inspired by a recent thread on /tg/.

Suppose PC A and PC B are working together to take down an enemy who is invulnerable save for one weakpoint. The plan is that B will get his attention and then, while he's distracted, A will come up behind him and land the killing blow. The first step goes smoothly: B charges in, makes a ruckus, and causes the enemy to focus on him. However, just as A is about to sneak up, B foolishly shouts, "Okay, A! I've got him distracted! He's all yours!" Of course, the enemy hears this, and the plan falls apart. B's player begs for a takeback, citing his character's well above average Intelligence and Wisdom.

You're the GM. Do you allow a takeback? Why or why not?

More broadly speaking, do you give metagame assistance to players who are playing characters smarter than they are in order to make up the difference?

[Tweed]

No. You ****** up, you live with it. Depending on the game intelligent characters might be able to make a roll on whatever makes up their brains for insight, but that can end up getting abused very quickly if you aren't careful.

[Kalarion]

In that specific scenario, no. It's so incredibly ******** that I wouldn't even consider allowing it in that circumstance. Unless I'm misunderstanding the context somehow?

But in general, forgiveness is divine. So yes, when I feel it's appropriate. If we didn't want a human element of adjudication in our games GMs would have gone by the wayside long ago.

When I GM'd, I wouldn't give direct metagame assistance, but I would allow blind attribute- and skill-based rolls to gain it when I thought it was appropriate that a PC have a chance to know something, or remember something I'd told the player and he (the player, not the PC) had clearly forgotten about.

[WhiteShark]

Unless I'm misunderstanding the context somehow?

Not unless I did. The original scenario was a touch more complicated, but the key moment is the same.

When I GM'd, I wouldn't give direct metagame assistance, but I would allow blind attribute- and skill-based rolls to gain it when I thought it was appropriate that a PC have a chance to know something, or remember something I'd told the player and he (the player, not the PC) had clearly forgotten about.

Did you do this without player prompting in moments you felt appropriate, or only when asked?

[Tangerine]

No. Any verbal communication to coordinate combat maneuvers is to be considered in-character communication. Otherwise the PCs are telepaths, even if they don't have that ability.

[Tweed]

There were a few points in a game my brother ran where he asked us "Why would you do that? or "Are you sure you want to do that?" before someone was about to do something incredibly stupid instead of letting us go ahead. So the second question you have to ask yourself is, is the DM meant to act as a barrier of common sense against ridiculously bad decisions?

Obviously, things that happen spur of the moment don't count.

[Acrux]

I think it also depends on the type of game you are playing and the norms that have been established with the group. I'm going to assume this is group is simulationist (as is proper) and has already established that speaking out loud in character means it's going to be heard. I guess I can see a situation where a player genuinely didn't know or realize that's the case.

I was in a recent group that got around this by permanent Telepathic Bonds between everyone. I suppose it would have been handy, but this group was very much "act now, plan later".

[WhiteShark]

There were a few points in a game my brother ran where he asked us "Why would you do that? or "Are you sure you want to do that?" before someone was about to do something incredibly stupid instead of letting us go ahead. So the second question you have to ask yourself is, is the DM meant to act as a barrier of common sense against ridiculously bad decisions?

Obviously, things that happen spur of the moment don't count.

I have heard it argued, and with this I agree, that the GM should ask those sorts of questions when he thinks there's some incongruity between his perception of the game world and that of the players. For example, if the GM describes a chasm as being fifty feet across, and a player then promptly declares that he's going to jump over it, it makes sense for the GM to first make sure that the player didn't mishear him, not because it's suicidal per se, but because the declaration seems very likely to be based on an erroneous perception of the game world.

I don't know all the details of the scenario I stole from /tg/, so I don't know if the player decided to have B speak based on an erroneous assumption that the enemy was deaf, unintelligent, or not fluent in the language. If the enemy were a sapient humanoid and the player knew that, I would have no mercy. There were no reason to think that it was impossible for the enemy to hear and understand. On the other hand, I would feel slightly more inclined to leniency if it were a creature that the character should have known was sapient but the player didn't. However, my overall feeling about such a case is that the player still should have confirmed beforehand or asked for a knowledge check.

[rusty_shackleford]

Gurps has two feats(? Whatever it is), related to this. Basically if you have it and you do something stupid or out of character, the GM will ask if you're sure you want to do it.

Give me a bit

[rusty_shackleford]

Related:
https://gurps.fandom.com/wiki/Common_Sense <-- also has some decent discussion links within on the topic
https://gurps.fandom.com/wiki/Intuition
https://livingmythrpg.wordpress.com/201 ... ation-gap/

The advisory check is asking the GM, (and possibly the other players depending on the dynamics at your table) for a brainstorm. Remember the Player is just some guy, the person they are playing is an expert at something. So, the player says “What are some of the ways I can break into this mansion?”. A roll is made, and based on that roll the GM lays down things that the Player should probably consider. So the GM might say “The front door is probably guarded. There are windows, but since a Mage lives here there’s the possibility of ensorcellment that would alert someone. There is a cellar entrance, but that will mean more distance to cover. Servants come in and out every morning and evening. Finally, you know this person socializes a lot, so there’s a good chance they are throwing a party soon.”

Notice, the GM didn’t give the player straight advice or tell the player what to do, the GM just stated facts that a thief would probably consider (and that the GM has probably already considered) in terms of breaking into a house. The advisory check is not a way to Deus Ex Machina a solution, it is to provide the player with the sort of strategic advice she needs to make good decisions.

This check should also be reflexive. It’s a ‘common sense’ check for domain specific things. The thief says “I try to climb through the window” and the GM knows that’s an immersion breaking and unrealistic choice for this PC. He has the character make a check and says “Okay, but you’re pretty sure those will have alarm spells cast on them” if the roll succeeds.

Of note, the Advisory check to a certain extent is a resolution to the issue of “Challenge” vs “Action” resolution that you read about in RPG theory. It is a mechanism by which a player can anchor a “Challenge” (what they want to accomplish) in a set of “Actions” (things that they can actually do).

The second kind of Player information is about getting specific, or tactical facts, instead of getting strategic information. Here the player says “Is the glass cutter I have likely to cut through this glass?”, or “Are the servants loyal enough that they’ll be resistant to bribes”. Also, “how hard is it likely to be to pick the lock on the cellar”. These are specific questions about the state of the world that the Player Character would likely have access to, but the Player doesn’t. A thief knows the tools of the trade, a wizard knows what sorts of spells are going around, and a fighter understands the effects of terrain and weather on a combat situation.

Players should be encouraged to ask specific meaningful questions about in-game facts that would be relevant. How hard is this check? It depends on how esoteric the question is. A fighter asking “Who’s the best blacksmith in town” should be pretty **** easy, the Mage asking “What library has information of the Elder God Xool” is much more difficult. What social class is this person could be trivial or very hard depending on how much that person is trying to hide their social class.

These are purely meta mechanics that are in actuality anti-metagaming because they help the player understand their own character. The player should always be able to access any information or knowledge that is available to their character in order to form the gestalt.

[Kalarion]

Unless I'm misunderstanding the context somehow?

Not unless I did. The original scenario was a touch more complicated, but the key moment is the same.

When I GM'd, I wouldn't give direct metagame assistance, but I would allow blind attribute- and skill-based rolls to gain it when I thought it was appropriate that a PC have a chance to know something, or remember something I'd told the player and he (the player, not the PC) had clearly forgotten about.

Did you do this without player prompting in moments you felt appropriate, or only when asked?

Both, but overwhelmingly the former. Come to think of it, I believe the origin of my doing this was in fact the result of the first and only time I did it upon request. It was a peace-offering over a blowout fight I had with my two closest friends during a session where they had made a bone-headed decision without taking into account a clear in-world warning I gave them. I had (as you said) "no mercy", but I also mixed in a couple scathing remarks to my friend that, over the course of our shouting match, I decided I deeply regretted.

Eventually after we'd both tired ourselves out he said, "okay look dude, my guy's pretty intelligent, can you at least give him an INT roll to remember critical information that should have come to mind in this situation?"

To be clear, I didn't regret taking that out one bit (I'm a big believer in giving pax between repentant friends), but it was an out.

[ArcaneLurker]

The purpose of the game is to be fun, rather than never undo silly mistakes, especially when it's from something like that, where you're trying to verbally communicate to the other player, but mistakenly do so as the roleplayed character, so I would tease them about it and then allow takeback.

[Stack of Turtles]

There were a few points in a game my brother ran where he asked us "Why would you do that? or "Are you sure you want to do that?" before someone was about to do something incredibly stupid instead of letting us go ahead. So the second question you have to ask yourself is, is the DM meant to act as a barrier of common sense against ridiculously bad decisions?

Obviously, things that happen spur of the moment don't count.

I think the right thing to do is to ask "Are you sure you want to do that?" regardless of whether it's stupid or not, just to give players crippling self-doubt. I've done this on occasion.

[Eyestabber]

I remember asking players to roll for wisdom or int when doing something stupid. Pass = "you realize doing X is a bad ideia because Y", fail = consequences happen straight away. I think the opposite scenario is way more problematic: experienced player is the party low int barbarian yet he keeps coming up with the best plans. Telling a player "no, you can't do it because your character doesn't know that" tends to result in arguing.

[Acrux]

Alexander Macris has a really good blog post about this and the various scenarios that can come up. (I think you've linked this before, @WhiteShark.)
https://arbiterofworlds.substack.com/p/ ... cter-skill

[Rand]

This sot of thing is why I don't allow intelligence as a thinking power stat (and ESPECIALLY "wisdom", yuck).

INT makes some sense for computer games because it acts as a filter for what or who you can interact with or how, but those kinds of stats are bad in tabletop.

The kinds of mental abilities I allow result in:
• magical aptitude
• language aptitude
• (sometimes) number of skills
• perception
And that's pretty much it.

Sometimes they can be different attributes, and sometimes they can all be lumped together (like GURPS which only has 4 prime stats).
But as for reasoning, the player is on their own. Their character is as smart as they are, or as much dumber as they care to portray them.

[Norfleet]

B's player begs for a takeback, citing his character's well above average Intelligence and Wisdom.

You're the GM. Do you allow a takeback? Why or why not?

No, people just derp sometimes. Once you have committed an action, unless the stated premise under which the action undertaken is false and the action is therefore wildly absurd because the scene has been misinterpreted, no backsies. If the player says he leaps across the river, but the river is a hundred feet wide, I'm going to ask if he understands. But in this scene, the player seems to understand the scene properly, and has nonetheless derped.

More broadly speaking, do you give metagame assistance to players who are playing characters smarter than they are in order to make up the difference?

Yes, if they ask for it, they receive a stat roll for it. They may ask even if their stats are poor. The results may not be terribly promising, though.

It's similar to how in a vidya game, a character with good trap detection and observation skills will get the landmine their character just detected hilighted for them on the screen. A player without these skills gets to have their leg blown off, or has to manually flag and avoid the area.

This sot of thing is why I don't allow intelligence as a thinking power stat (and ESPECIALLY "wisdom", yuck).

INT makes some sense for computer games because it acts as a filter for what or who you can interact with or how, but those kinds of stats are bad in tabletop.

Nah, Int, at least, makes sense. Just because someone HAS a decent intelligence...it does not mean that they use it. Some people who are perfectly capable of reasoning just...don't, out of pure apathy and laziness. Your character may choose to actually use their brain. Or not. Having it is essentially the option for the player to make a skill check on it.

Wis is a more questionable stat because it intrudes too heavily on the player's domain. Ultimately it could be replaced with a Willpower stat with little thematic impact, since that's essentially how it gets used, as a boost to Will saves. Every other thing Wisdom is often glommed into often results in nonsense. For instance, under D&D rules, old people have better hearing because Wisdom gets boosted by age category. This is obviously ********.

[Rand]

Wis is a more questionable stat because it intrudes too heavily on the player's domain. Ultimately it could be replaced with a Willpower stat with little thematic impact, since that's essentially how it gets used, as a boost to Will saves. Every other thing Wisdom is often glommed into often results in nonsense. For instance, under D&D rules, old people have better hearing because Wisdom gets boosted by age category. This is obviously ********.

I don't agree with your take on INT at all, but I could not have explained any better myself why WIS is the most garbage stat ever envisioned.
I have spent 4 decades wondering what the hell Gygax was thinking adding that stupid piece of ****, but not perception or luck.
(Well, that and the one minute combat round when you have thrown weapons and bows, both of which are one missile per attack... what the **** are archers doing for 50 seconds every minute?)

[Norfleet]

(Well, that and the one minute combat round when you have thrown weapons and bows, both of which are one missile per attack... what the **** are archers doing for 50 seconds every minute?)

What's ANYONE doing for that long, really? There's a reason why the combat round got condensed from 60 seconds to 6. It became very obvious when the game was translated to a visual medium like vidya games that 60 seconds was an absurd length for a combat round.

[Rand]

(Well, that and the one minute combat round when you have thrown weapons and bows, both of which are one missile per attack... what the **** are archers doing for 50 seconds every minute?)

What's ANYONE doing for that long, really? There's a reason why the combat round got condensed from 60 seconds to 6. It became very obvious when the game was translated to a visual medium like vidya games that 60 seconds was an absurd length for a combat round.

Fighting like the background combatants in a movie, of course. A lot of circling and clashing weapons (where they would miss by a meter even if the opponent did nothing).

[Norfleet]

I don't agree with your take on INT at al

Then you clearly haven't experienced people who are clearly not stupid, but just decline to mentally apply themselves to most things. If you subjected them to a life-or-death scenario where their ability to think would save them, they would be capable of doing it. But if you subjected them to a situation where their willingness to think would let them AVOID said life-or-death scenario, they would quickly find themselves in that life-or-death scenario that they now have to think their way out of, which could have been entirely avoided had they bothered to apply themselves in advance. Intelligence does not do anything to prevent apathy, laziness, and complacency, and often exacerbates it. Like physical muscle, just because somebody CAN lift a car doesn't mean he's not too lazy to actually do it. It is ultimately incumbent on the player to choose to apply the abilities he has.

Fighting like the background combatants in a movie, of course. A lot of circling and clashing weapons (where they would miss by a meter even if the opponent did nothing).

That's still absurd, though. Background combatants in a movie can't spend an entire minute circling just for someone to swing once. The movie's only 90 minutes long, and there's still lots of other scenes we have to fit into that time. More importantly, the fight soundtrack is only 2 minutes long, and the first 40 seconds is the pre-fight intro, so you actually have to wrap this up in only 80 seconds.

[mercerxiv]

Nah, that specific situation sounds like he messed up and now gotta live with it

[Atlantico]

Inspired by a recent thread on /tg/.

Suppose PC A and PC B are working together to take down an enemy who is invulnerable save for one weakpoint. The plan is that B will get his attention and then, while he's distracted, A will come up behind him and land the killing blow. The first step goes smoothly: B charges in, makes a ruckus, and causes the enemy to focus on him. However, just as A is about to sneak up, B foolishly shouts, "Okay, A! I've got him distracted! He's all yours!" Of course, the enemy hears this, and the plan falls apart. B's player begs for a takeback, citing his character's well above average Intelligence and Wisdom.

You're the GM. Do you allow a takeback? Why or why not?

More broadly speaking, do you give metagame assistance to players who are playing characters smarter than they are in order to make up the difference?

I'm leaning towards no takebacks because the way you describe it character B's player seems to be acting out the action in-character by invoking character A's name, instead of player A's name.

Ultimately I'd decide based on how emotional and upset player B would become or how interesting or entertaining this stupid action would be for the group as a whole. A roleplaying session is not just about single events, it's a group experience. The other players can then participate, berate character B for being so stupid and/or inquire if there's something wrong with him since he's usually not that stupid.

[rusty_shackleford]

Alexander Macris has a really good blog post about this and the various scenarios that can come up. (I think you've linked this before, @WhiteShark.)
https://arbiterofworlds.substack.com/p/ ... cter-skill

I'm almost certain I watched this in video form so he probably has a video on it too. And I agree, it's meant to be a synergy.

[rusty_shackleford]

For the poll: no takeback, but depending on the system perhaps do a WIS check, or skill, talent, etc., for common sense when the player would have done something stupid.

[SoLong]

Inspired by a recent thread on /tg/.

Suppose PC A and PC B are working together to take down an enemy who is invulnerable save for one weakpoint. The plan is that B will get his attention and then, while he's distracted, A will come up behind him and land the killing blow. The first step goes smoothly: B charges in, makes a ruckus, and causes the enemy to focus on him. However, just as A is about to sneak up, B foolishly shouts, "Okay, A! I've got him distracted! He's all yours!" Of course, the enemy hears this, and the plan falls apart. B's player begs for a takeback, citing his character's well above average Intelligence and Wisdom.

You're the GM. Do you allow a takeback? Why or why not?

More broadly speaking, do you give metagame assistance to players who are playing characters smarter than they are in order to make up the difference?

In this specific game, where the player makes his character shout, no, I would not allow take-backs. Wise and smart people also make mistakes, this is one such instance.

The broader application is much more important. I've handled it in the sense that I've tiered the knowledge. Someone playing a level 20 Archmage gets trivial knowledge (trivial for an archmage, not Bumblefuck the beggar) the character should know for free, without rolls, because I figured that the chance of such a character not knowing was even lower than the chance of a critical fail with advantage. For other stuff, they need to roll, even if they could theoretically embarass themselves. If the roll exceeds the number I asked for, then I give the player the knowledge, no questions asked and in whatever completeness the player needs for the situations. If the number is lower, they get nothing because they fail to recall anything meaningful. If the number lands exactly on the point between success and failure, I give a very general summary of the knowledge because the character has trouble recalling. The player also doesn't get to ask for clarifications.

As an obvious rule patch, I also don't allow the players to make such rolls for the same topic more than once between short/long rests. Trying to remember again but harder rarely works, after all.

The only exception I've allowed is if the character is a cleric/paladin of a god with a domain that contains the subject in question (or more generally, the knowledge domain). Those characters get a second attempt where, instead of remembering themselves, they ask their god (or a divine servant if the level is lower) for assistance. The god always knows the information, but a failure means the ritual doesn't work or the god is too busy at the moment.

I do indeed allow takebacks or other more subtle corrections, but only in very select cases. If someone in the group is actively being a ****, or more embarassingly, when I've made a mistake and accidentally screwed my players over without meaning to (for example, by choosing the wrong statblock for a creature and only noticing halfway through the fight, or giving out incorrect information).

So, on balance, I would answer your question with "Yes, but only within conditions attached".

[WhiteShark]

Thanks to everyone who responded. I want to reply to a lot of these posts. I'll get to them as I'm able.

The purpose of the game is to be fun, rather than never undo silly mistakes, especially when it's from something like that, where you're trying to verbally communicate to the other player, but mistakenly do so as the roleplayed character, so I would tease them about it and then allow takeback.

Based on what I can glean from the original scenario, this was a lapse of judgment on the player's part, not a miscommunication about what counted as IC speech. If it were a simple case of, "Whoops, I wrote that in the wrong chat window," or, "Whoops, I didn't realize that this group considers everything you say out loud during combat to be IC speech," then sure, no reason to take a hardline stance, but since the player's argument for a takeback rested on his character's mental stats, I don't think that's what was going on.

[ArcaneLurker]

Well, I think in the case where a player tries to do something out of character, and the GM stops him, ought to apply in cases where it saves the player from his own mistakes, just as much as it applies where it screws the player over.

[rusty_shackleford]

Well, I think in the case where a player tries to do something out of character, and the GM stops him, ought to apply in cases where it saves the player from his own mistakes, just as much as it applies where it screws the player over.

There should be a rule for how to handle e.g., doing something that is opposed to your character's alignment(or whatever the game uses — ethos, etc.,), yes.

For example, if we assume a generic D&D version with generic D&D terms, a lawful good character doing a chaotic or evil deed should be required to succeed at whatever the equivalent of a willpower test is.
Or maybe even the inverse if something is so tempting and the character is neutral.

I don't think I've seen any games explore this, not off-hand anyways.

[Rand]

Then you clearly haven't experienced people who are clearly not stupid, but just decline to mentally apply themselves to most things. If you subjected them to a life-or-death scenario where their ability to think would save them, they would be capable of doing it. But if you subjected them to a situation where their willingness to think would let them AVOID said life-or-death scenario, they would quickly find themselves in that life-or-death scenario that they now have to think their way out of, which could have been entirely avoided had they bothered to apply themselves in advance. Intelligence does not do anything to prevent apathy, laziness, and complacency, and often exacerbates it. Like physical muscle, just because somebody CAN lift a car doesn't mean he's not too lazy to actually do it. It is ultimately incumbent on the player to choose to apply the abilities he has.

I'm not going to use in-game mechanics to make up for player stupidity. I am a neutral referee.
It is the group's job to police stupidity in its members. If someone is being reliably stupid, they may institute the "caller" role, where only what that player informs the referee of is actually said or done, so as to neutralize an idiot.