How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?

[prabe]

There's a roleplaying aspect to this... I've found that many players don't like being limited by their character's abilities, only empowered by them. They'll take a dump stat because they don't care about the mechanical effect, but heaven forbid they actually abide buy or portray the character's lack of foresight, or wits, or intellect, or charm, or whatever.

And watch the wrath of the heavens descend on a GM who establishes situations where the dump stat matters, and enforces them. But yes, people don't (typically) dump INT because they want to play a moron, or CHA because they want to play a boor.

And then there's another question, of how often does a game present a challenge that's directed at the character's intelligence. For example, I've seen arguments over whether a puzzle is in the game to challenge the character, or challenge the player -- sure the character with the 20 out of 20 INT and the "Puzzlemaster Feat" could solve it moments, but what does that matter when the GM and/or the player insists that the players need to solve the puzzle, not "the dice"?

This is similar to social skills, where someone kinda introverted decides to play a face and has a hard roleplaying it and counts on the mechanics. In both cases it kinda puts at least some extra work on the GM. I think puzzles are probably the case where it's hardest to go to mechanical (dice-rolling) solutions, because usually the point is, as I understand it, to challenge the player not the character, especially when there's no game-mechanics resolution given. If you give intelligent players a Gordian Knot, don't be surprised if they go with an Alexandrian solution.