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2020-05-21, 07:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
The word “intelligence” is used to include a great many things, not all of which are connected. If we stop trying to make it include things it can’t include in the game, things make more sense.
Playing a character is simply making a long series of decisions. From choosing a class and building a character, to choosing the right spells or equipment, to studying the rules to understand the effects of one’s choices, to deciding which weapon or spell to use, and where to aim it, the play of the game is decision-making.
And a 30 on your character’s INT score will not help you make better decisions.
But why should it? There are highly intelligent people who are nonetheless very impractical (Sheldon Cooper, the classic absent-minded professor), and there are highly intelligent people who are also very practical (Batman, Sherlock Holmes).
The INT score determines how intelligent your character is, but your long sequence of decisions will determine how practical or clever she is in using that intelligence.
Consider two players. Pat is running a high-INT wizard. Sandy is running an average INT sorcerer. The party explores an area and sees a bunch of tracks and many scorched trees. Pat asks to roll a knowledge(arcana) check, succeeds, and learns that there is a specific fire-based creature. The DM explains all the details about the creature. Pat’s wizard attacks with a fireball.
Meanwhile, Sandy says, “There are a lot of scorched trees here. Let’s try a cold spell.” The cold spell does double damage.
Pat’s wizard is absolutely higher intelligence, and has higher level spells available, and made the knowledge (arcana) roll. Sandy’s sorcerer showed more cleverness.
You play a high-intelligence character by having more spell points, making better INT-based skill checks, having access to higher-level spells, etc.
But you play a cleverer, more practical character by learning to make better decisions.
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2020-05-21, 07:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2020-05-21, 07:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
By intelligence, do you mean Knowledge, or total Mental capability.
If you mean knowledge, then just have a bunch of references to made up literature, book, and even some minor meta thoughts.
I've read that Intelligence of 15 in D&D is peak human capability. By 20 or so, just do random things that are incomprehensible and have them always be right. You can't do it yourself, since it is superhuman. Just make it up. If you are unhumanly smart, then not even the player should be able to understand the interactions of their character.
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2020-05-21, 08:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2012
Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
I think you are still missing my point.
If a player is not so bright, no amount of things a DM tells the player will change that. The player still needs to be the one that uses the information, and they don't have the skill and mental abilities to do so.
You can say the player is still in control of the character, sure: but if the player is just going to have the character do whatever the DM says...then is not the DM in control of the character?
DM: in the middle of the room you see a treasure chest
Player: Oh, my character can't wait to run over and takes all the loot!
DM: no, no, wait. Your super intelligent character is too smart to fall for this as it's a obvious trap.
Player:Oh, um, thanks DM. I won't have my character do that.
And if the player does choose to ignore the DM, and their smart character, then they are not playing a smart character after all.
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2020-05-21, 08:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
I didn't particularly read the other posts, so my apologies if this is parroting information already stated. This also might be a little cynical as I seem to naturally gravitate towards darker characters.
Well, this is all purely theoretical, and this is a fairly common problem among writers... And this is just my interpretation of such a character/characters.
I'd say such a character would probably feel frustrated if they're the smartest person in the room, akin to being an adult talking to toddlers if the other people are of average or above average intelligence (this is avoidable if placed around beings of similar intelligence). There's also some studies to suggest higher intelligence leads to mental illnesses like depression and anxiety disorders, so they might not be the cheeriest person.
Probably able to memorize most things they see and hear, along with incredible problem solving abilities that border on being able to predict possible outcomes like Sherlock Holmes to the point where they're basically omniscient/able to see the future (unless this is broken up into Wisdom, but this is the general forums section, so I'll include it).
Then there's the Dunning-Kruger Effect means that, depending on their Charisma, they might have an even harder time communicating their ideas to those with lower intelligence due to lack of confidence... Though this is more dependent on their supplemental mental scores.
So these characters might appear coldly logical on the outside, but that's because of apathy brought on by depression/anxiety, boredom with most things as most things can be predicted to them along with tests of intelligence coming so easily they rarely have to give most things their all so don't see much point in going all out with how easily things come to them, possibly confused on why other people of realistic levels of intelligence struggle with the simplest of concepts, the ability to memorize most things and create/improve upon already existing things means they'd probably have a grim satisfaction with their intelligence, and possibly be intellectually isolated if placed around people of average or even realistically genius levels of intelligence as it might as well be like them trying to communicate with ants or toddlers in the bodies of adults... This isn't even going into how much they might be frustrated communicating simple (to them) ideas to average/realistically intelligent people (imagine trying to teach a kindergartner the details of theoretical physics... Simple to you, but not them), though this really depends on their Charisma score (or equivalent of Charisma) and possibly could result in talking down to average intelligence/highly intelligent people (by our standards) like one would a child. Possibly nihilistic depending on how they interpret the world around them.Last edited by AntiAuthority; 2020-05-21 at 09:14 PM.
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2020-05-21, 09:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
Zarrgon. Your examples are the problem. Because you keep writing this DM as though they are grabbing the steering wheel when you can simply not do that.
Instead of a note that says "your intelligent character is too smart to fall for this" - try instead "your knowledge of Drow suggests that they would never leave a real treasure unguarded in the center of an empty room. This appears to be a trap." Then the player makes the choice of what to do with that information. Why is this such a difficult concept?
A good character might warn his companions, or if doing so might result in more danger, trigger it themselves.
An evil character might say "That lid looks heavy. We should let our strong and gallant Paladin, who I've never gotten along with, open the chest first." Followed by a knowing smirk. See? Choice.Last edited by Psyren; 2020-05-21 at 09:20 PM.
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2020-05-21, 10:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
Your making way too much of a leap.
You have the not so bright player with a smart character and the DM tells the player some information the smart character would know.
Now your making the leap that the dim player will, somehow, become smart and act and even role play in an intelligent way, just as they were told some information.
The DM passes the the note that says "your knowledge of Drow suggests that they would never leave a real treasure unguarded in the center of an empty room. This appears to be a trap."
The player looks at the note and just says "my character goes over and ties to open the chest".
See the intelligence of the player is totally unaffected by the note: they are the same person they have always been.
Sure the not so bright player can make a choice, but that has no effect on role playing a smart character: The players choices will always be not so bright because that is all the player can think of. It's the classic: you can lead a horse to water, but you can not make them drink it.
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2020-05-21, 11:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
1) Weren't you just saying the DM is controlling the character's actions instead of the player? So which is it?
2) "I want to roleplay a superintelligent character" and "I want to trigger a trap for no reason after finding out it's a trap" isn't a system problem, it's just a troll at your table.Last edited by Psyren; 2020-05-21 at 11:28 PM.
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2020-05-21, 11:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
Yes, my specific examples were specific. That’s the essence of an example. And yes, they were deliberately chosen to be a system the largest number of readers could recognize.
Nonetheless, the basic point applies equally well to Intelligence as used in all versions of D&D, Chivalry & Sorcery, Hero Systems, Traveller, Flashing Blades, GURPS, Pendragon, and in fact every game I’ve ever played with Intelligence as a stat.
Agreed. Therefore I wrote, “If we stop trying to make it include things we can’t include in the game, it all makes more sense.”
My primary point is that playing a game is a series of decisions. As long as the definition of Intelligence as a stat includes decision making, the game stat cannot represent that, without taking the decisions away from the player.
As soon as we stop thinking that the stat represents the part of the character that is what we play, then there is no problem.
If I play a World War II game, even if I am playing Patton’s troops, I don’t have Patton’s decisions. The write-up can give me his knowledge of the tanks’ abilities, and a description of the terrain effects, but I am making the decisions, not Patton.
As soon as we stop expecting the rules to give me Patton’s decision-making skills, it all makes sense.
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2020-05-22, 04:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
Gotta agree with Jay R here. Intelligence-as-decision-making is notoriously hard to model, intelligence-as-memory is trivial: a player can write notes, record audio, use a calculator, look up things on Google etc. to both retain and access more information than they could on their own.
Zarrgon is right that IQ 100 decision made on N+1 units of information is still as much an IQ 100 decision as one made with N units of information, but for purposes of a game, it's enough.
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2020-05-22, 12:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
It's my main point: the not so bright player does not like being told by the DM what to do under the guise of the DM telling the player what their smart character would do.
Note it is also a typical action of a not so bright person.
When you just look at people in general, look how many people make poor, bad or stupid decisions or actions. Right now, somewhere someone, is sending their bank information online as they are so happy they won the Whatever Lotto. Right now, somewhere someone, is signing up for a car warranty over the phone. Right now someone is getting the call that their social security number has been canceled and to get it back they must go to Dollar General and get a $500 visa gift card and send it to the caller on the phone.
You can spend hours...days even..watching You Tube videos full of such things. The guys ladder can't reach the top of his house, so no problem he gets the ping pong table out of the shed, puts the latter on top of that and climbs up, what could possibly go wrong, right?
And in most such cases, even if someone was there to tell them not to do it....they mostly likely still would.
You can give a player all the information in the game world, but that will never make the player smarter or more intelligent.
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2020-05-22, 02:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
Nowhere did I say anything even remotely like, "The other player takes control of the smart PC from the less-smart player and tells him what his character does."
What I said was, "The other players, who do figure out something that the player of the smart PC has missed, point out what they have figured out."
Those other players aren't having their characters speak, IC. They're telling the player of the smart PC what they've figured out, and if the player of the smart PC wishes, he can have his character be the one to figure it out. And then act on whatever it is that's been figured out.
I am unsure why you think this is any more taking over the PC by telling his player "what a smart character would do" than having the player roll a Knowledge or Intelligence check to see if he knows or figures something out.
It's sharing information and letting the player who controls the PC who should, IC, be the one figuring stuff out be the one who gets to have and therefore act on the information.
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2020-05-22, 02:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
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2020-05-22, 04:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
When you give the player information the player has to use their own mind and skills and mental ability to understand, comprehend, assimilate and use that information. If the player does not understand, the DM or other players have to further explain things and help the poor player understand and this leads down the road of others taking contol of the character.
When I say ''takes control of the character" I'm not talking about grabbing the character sheet and throwing the player out of the game. I'm talking about more the follower effect where the player willing gives up control of their character. In this case: because they want their character to act smart.
The DM tells the player information their smart character knows.
The player does not understand and asks for help.
The DM or other players tell the player what their smart character should do.
The player wanting to play a smart character has their character do whatever they said to do.
And my whole point is that it does not work. The player will get tired quickly of always following the advise of "what their smart character would do".
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2020-05-22, 04:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
There is a difference between "playing a character smarter than you" and "playing a character smarter than you can imagine." Obviously in either case it's easier the more intelligent you are. Zarrgon is focusing more on the latter case, whereas I understood the main point of the OP to be the former, and Zarrgon seems also to be focusing on the difficulties--more prevalent when playing a being more intelligent than you can imagine--more than on offering advice. Most of how it's going to work--if it's going to work--is likely to involve some amount of metagame thinking, some amount of prep, and some amount of help from the GM and the other players.
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2020-05-22, 05:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2020-05-22, 08:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
Ok, Ive said it a couple times but I'll say it again: I agree with that. Ok, done, final, over. You never need bring it up again.
Ok....now, I'm talking about the next step after that.
The not so bright player gets all the information from the DM, but they do not understand it or know what to do with it. So they have to ask what it means, and then head down the road of asking for advise. And this is where the player will freely choose to give up control of their character to have their character do whatever the player was advised to do.
Is that more clear?
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2020-05-22, 08:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
That's not unique to hyperintelligent characters.
I've seen almost every type of character played by someone who constantly asks what they should do.Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2020-05-22 at 08:35 PM. Reason: typo
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2020-05-22, 08:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
How the heck would a reasonable person not know what to do with information like "this is an obvious trap?" There's a certain level of player knowledge you're expected to have to be able to play the game at all. Would you also have to explain to them that fire is hot and spikes are pointy? The word "trap" generally carries negative connotations.
And the player usually doesn't have to do anything except announce what his knowledge roll has told him. He rolls high, the GM hands him a note, the other players look at him. In-character, he says "that has a high likelihood of being a trap." The choice is still his, as well as the party's what to do next.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2020-05-22, 09:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
You're spending a lot of time saying that the system or the DM can supply knowledge and memory, but it can't supply decisiond without taking the decision-making away from the player.
I don't even think you would even disagree about any specific situation; you're just talking about different situations.
I suspect that one of you is talking about DM info that leaves only one good option, while the other is talking about DM info that takes away the one bad option.
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2020-05-22, 09:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
Well, keep in mind the reasonable average intelligence person would not need or want the DM to pass them information as they can figure out things for themselves and role play a smart character by themselves.
It's the unreasonable below average intelligence person that wants the help from the DM so they can role play their character as a smart character that is the focus here.
This is my point though.
-The not so bright player wants to play a super smart character.
-So the DM does the bit where they pass smart notes to the player. And later the DM passes the note about the trap.
-Then the player has their character say the information as the player reads the note to everyone. This is where the player might feel like they are role playing a smart character for a couple seconds.
-The other players discuss the information, while the not so bright player just sits back as he normally does. He does not have anything else to add or say.
-Eventually the players of average intelligence or more will decide on a course of action using the DM note information.
-Then the group will ''strongly suggest" to the not so bright player what their smart character "should do".
-The not so bright player, having no idea what to do and wanting to play a smart character, just has their character do whatever the other player(s) told him to have his character do. The not so bright character chooses to be told what to do.
So there are my two points:
*Just getting notes of information from the DM does very little or nothing to make a player think or feel like they are playing a smart character.
*The DM information almost leads leads to others telling and suggesting to the player of "what their smart character would or should do", and that while the player might agree to follow and do as they are told at the start, it will wear thin quickly and the player won't like always being ''told by even the nicest suggestion" what to do with their character all the time.
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2020-05-22, 10:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
No, but you could have it change the value or effectiveness of the decision. You could imagine an approach more similar to metagame currency used in ruleslight games where you could use your character's intelligence to make plans work. Obviously that's not a perfect solution, as it is unsatisfying to the people who want to rely on their own cleverness, but there's no particular reason you couldn't allow people to take the action "come up with a clever plan to sneak into the fortress".
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2020-05-22, 10:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
That's because it's obviously a player trait, independent of character. A player who is unsure or insecure of how to play their character is prone to constantly seeking affirmation. It's undesireable only insofar the point is to get the player(s) to make decisions out of their own initiative and volition.
Psyren and Zarrgon, listen to Jay R. He has the gist of it.
The best compromise between merely supplying information and supplying decisions, is to offer multiple decisions of equal play strength. That's limited by the GM's intelligence rather than the player's, so it's not necessarily enough to produce smarter decisions than the player on their own, but it's something.
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2020-05-22, 11:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
I've never once advocated "supplying decisions." Please show me where I did, and I'll happily edit the post for clarity.
This is not the only possible scenario.
So what? Players suggest what they think other players should do all the time. What a character does is still up to their player.
Your points rely on a doormat player being browbeaten by either their group or their DM, neither of which I'm advocating. I'm not saying that can't happen, but no in-game solution can solve what is clearly an out-of-game problem. If people are mandating what your character does or should do, you're in a toxic group, and that is off-topic for this thread.
Not from where I'm sitting.Last edited by Psyren; 2020-05-22 at 11:56 PM.
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2020-05-23, 06:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
Wow, much less friendly thread than I'd expected it to be! This is... an absurdly pointless argument. There's plenty of ways to tie mechanical impact to whatever kind of flavour you want, and plenty of ways to add flavour with zero game impact. And if you're expecting your table's fictional Wizard to actually Sherlock the Big Bad's plot (which, spoiler alert, if you're at a table with people they're probably of comparable intelligence) thanks to the player's mental translation of a (necessarily) incomplete description of events in a world with quite substantial differences from our own, then I have bad news.
It's widely accepted that Ability Scores in D&D don't translate particularly brilliantly to real-world terms, regardless of what is said in the books. Nor do AC, Damage, or a whole bunch of other stuff. "Intelligence" as a concept is so ludicrously broad even in real-life that trying to nail down a single set of behaviours is silly - especially when you're getting to superhuman levels. Dogs can't outthink us, even if they're 'playing at being human.' The very concept of 'spacetime' - something which dogs likely can't grasp - forms the basis of everything from basic measurement to GPS. None of us are superhuman, so none of us know what the "next basic concepts" are if you follow - we literally cannot imagine how someone with 350 IQ thinks.
Given that there is no bar, no standard, it baffles me that there's such a level of argument over this. You are welcome to portray superintelligence however you please and no-one can say it's wrong. Those of you saying 'oh, but a really smart person wouldn't do X' - are honestly probably the least suited to weigh in. Smart people have emotions, neuroses, addictions and traumas just like everyone else. Not to mention they can be flat out wrong.
As far as agency goes, I'm sure we've all had (or heard of) players who need every thought reaffirmed and players who go out their way to spite anything resembling a suggestion. So any of the 'this is what your character knows/thinks' stuff is going to be decided on a table-by-table, person-by-person basis anyway. Because that's sort of the point of a tabletop game with a GM role, to make decisions based on what's actually happening.
So, to those of you who say it can't be done: please let the rest of us play our games about imaginary goblins whatever wrong way we want.
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2020-05-23, 09:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
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 by or portray the character's lack of foresight, or wits, or intellect, or charm, or whatever.
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"?Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2020-05-23 at 10:34 AM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2020-05-23, 09:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
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.
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.
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2020-05-23, 10:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
It's less about what they look like or how intelligent. More about the filter they see the world through.
Thanos is intelligent. He is strong and tough. His race has a longevity most would envy. His solutions to things generally apply power to the problem, it isn't always the easiest and he has a long view on things. He has an ideology to work towards and he does so.
Cavemen are hyper intelligent in comparison to the creatures of their world. What do they have? Two arms, two legs, a brain. This is where human greed started, it is our nature (though i feel we take it farther than they did). They were envious of mammoths and their pelts, of the sabertooth cats and their sharp fangs, and even the sun and it's warmth. They made blankets, coats, spears and fire. If we were not challenged by the environment we might not have those things or discover them much later.
I notice D&D and fantasy in general usually has hyper intelligent villains and strong heroes. What would a hyper intelligent villain want? What would a hyper intelligent hero want?
Caveman is sitting in cave. Stomach growls. He wants food. He remembers a suitable source nearby. Intelligence then pipes up "your kin needs food too. Bring [x] too to carry some of the food back. Remember that spear!"
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2020-05-23, 10:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?
It is sort of implicate in the number of varied answers but there is some initial steps I would like to highlight:
Make a Character: I hope this is obvious but "superhuman intelligence" is not a character, it is a trait. They will have many other traits as the character fills out. Some will relate to their intelligence (but are hardly fixed: to the enjoy explaining things to people who don't get it or does that drive them crazy) and others will not (is a highly intelligent person more or less likely to enjoy baking). This is just something I feel should be dropped into every thread about creating a type of character just as a reminder.
Choose a Type of Intelligence: I don't know any role-playing systems that have stats for every type of intelligence I have seen in the world. Even ignoring things like mussel-memory and coordination that are probably biologically mental but are better represented as a physical aspect for game play there are a lot. Being good at reading people is different than big picture thinking or predicting what will happen next and... let me put it this way: who did exactly as well in English (or whatever they call literature studies where you live) as they did in Mathematics? I certainly didn't.
Now neither of those things may not be immediately useful skills in most role-playing games, but intelligence is not one or three scaling values. So for any given character pick the representation of intelligence that suits them the best.
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2020-05-23, 12:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?