How do you roleplay characters with superhuman intelligence?

[Nifft]

Heh. I know one guy who does both. He has a hard time making decisions without other players/GM chiming in, but then 90% of the time he goes against the advice given.

Is that how to roleplay a subhuman intelligence?

[Dimers]

Is that how to roleplay a subhuman intelligence?

Nah, just Chaotic Stupid with a low Wisdom.

[Onos]

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.

Very well put. "Intelligence" has no more of an impact on personality than any of the other ability scores - sure, someone very strong probably enjoys working out to some extent, and someone very smart probably enjoys learning but beyond basic things like that (which can certainly still have exceptions) your stats shouldn't really guide your personality. Even skill proficiencies are a better measure of personality as they're supposed to be an area of interest to your character.

@Dimers: That's... tragically hilarious. I have great sympathy for your GM haha.

Something tangentially related which occurred to me, wondering if it's a common thought: the "ideal, bond and flaw" on the character sheet are pretty terrible IMO. Bond is too situational (i.e. there's too many murderhobos) to be of much use.

Ideal and Flaw could potentially be worthwhile if taken down to one of each, though I do think some small mechanical impact could be given (to encourage the metagaming instincts and allow role to more actively contribute to roll) and be fleshed out with a bunch more traits like a Fear, Secret, Goal, Resentment or what have you. This could be steered towards "intelligence" as much as any other traits, and something I experiment with in home games. Anyone have any similar thoughts which can help character portrayal?

[jayem]

Oh I reckon I manage to dumb things down enough. [Now that's out the way]

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.

It's got to be a case where every bit of leverage comes together. By the first line the DM should be applying the players experience
DM: in the middle of the room you see a suspiciously positioned treasure chest

The player should try to instruct forms of behaviour associated with intelligent behaviour "I think about the object"
The team can supply 'inner monologues', even if it's a group decision it's still "his" character. "If the stables on fire, you'll need more than a bucket of water"
The DM can help again "you start to walk towards what looks like an obvious trap..."
The player can bring what intelligence they have (if this is high then they can carry more of the weight by themselves. If lower they can have more help)

[Lorsa]

I think the best suggestion on this thread is that hyper intelligent creatures would be hyper prepared.

Ehm, why? If you can outwit anyone in the moment, why prepare? Wouldn't that just make things boring?

Actually, come to think of it, hyper intelligent individuals are most likely hyper bored. It depends, of course, how lonely they are, but at least of humans, it's sort of a universal that high intelligence need stimuli - which can be difficult to get if noone is around to give you a challenge. So you might end up purposefully making it more difficult for yourself.

I guess my real point is that high intelligence isn't the only predictor of how people act. In fact, it may be a poor one.

[Democratus]

For NPCs run by the GM, I think hyper-prepared is a good way to go because it is a great story trope. Serving the story of the game seems a reasonable standard for which to strive.

I have seen a few fun systems for handling super-intelligent NPCs during combat that usually involve predictive advantage to the NPC.

PCs, in general, should not have superhuman (super-elf, super-dwarf, etc.) intelligence. They are portraying people and that means that nothing about their mind is beyond what people can have.

Stories about super-human intelligence are usually about runaway AI, since any intellect a human can have is - by definition - not superhuman.

[prabe]

As one of the people who mentioned preparedness as a way to emulate hyper-intelligence, I was specifically thinking of player-side preparation as a way to emulate superfast decision-making. You work out a number of responses to approximate situations, before they happen. As with any of the mental stats (in roughly any game that has mental stats), it's easier to roleplay the better you are at it IRL: It's easier for high-social people to play high-social characters; it's easier for smart people to play smart characters; it's easier for intuitive people to play intuitive characters. I think there are things a player (with a little help from the GM) can do to make their character a little smarter, but it's obviously going to be limited by player capability.

[Segev]

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.

They don't? In my experience, that's EXACTLY why those stats get dumped. And people dump Wisdom when they want to play an impulsive so-and-so.

[prabe]

They don't? In my experience, that's EXACTLY why those stats get dumped. And people dump Wisdom when they want to play an impulsive so-and-so.

In my experience, people dump stats in scores that don't matter for the concept they're intending to play. What you're talking about sounds like what some guys I play with call/ed "free points" in a point-buy system: when the system gives you build points for playing a character you think will be fun (especially if the GM doesn't put the characters into situations where the disadvantage comes up). There's a difference between "I want to play a foolish character" and "In order to maximize something else I need to put a low score somewhere ... Wisdom will do."

[Segev]

In my experience, people dump stats in scores that don't matter for the concept they're intending to play. What you're talking about sounds like what some guys I play with call/ed "free points" in a point-buy system: when the system gives you build points for playing a character you think will be fun (especially if the GM doesn't put the characters into situations where the disadvantage comes up). There's a difference between "I want to play a foolish character" and "In order to maximize something else I need to put a low score somewhere ... Wisdom will do."

Sure, but I still haven't seen people - with the exception of some who take explicit advantage of a system claiming to value an aspect of play and then failing to have a subsystem in favor of "roleplay it" - who typically dump something and then ignore the defect.

Even people who take, say, a dump stat of Strength because they're playing a flipping wizard and need every ounce of Int they can get don't whine and moan that the DM is being unfair if Strength comes up as being important. They knew what they were doing when they dumped it, and most of them even laugh along with everyone else at how feeble their character is and at coming up with work-arounds to solve the problem.

The guy playing the low-Wisdom BDF isn't whining that the DM used mind-control on his character. He's rolling his eyes, sure, and maybe complaining that things are going poorly, but who doesn't?

I generally only see people really start doing the "but you're picking on me!" complaining when they've built a weakness into their character that does take some enemy intelligence or bad luck to exploit. "My super-fragile long-range sniping super-stealther is being targeted by long-range AoEs in his general vicinity? Why are they targeting ME when they can't even tell I'm there!?" is more common than, "You have the hypno-master snake-people using suggestion on my low-Wisdom fighter!? Why are you picking on me like that!?"

[prabe]

Sure, but I still haven't seen people - with the exception of some who take explicit advantage of a system claiming to value an aspect of play and then failing to have a subsystem in favor of "roleplay it" - who typically dump something and then ignore the defect.

That's the whole "murderhobo" trope/cliche, innit? I don't need to interact politely with people if I'm just going to kill everyone. I think the distinction between "the game as played ignores the defect" and "the player ignores the defect" is one without much difference in practice.

I generally only see people really start doing the "but you're picking on me!" complaining when they've built a weakness into their character that does take some enemy intelligence or bad luck to exploit. "My super-fragile long-range sniping super-stealther is being targeted by long-range AoEs in his general vicinity? Why are they targeting ME when they can't even tell I'm there!?" is more common than, "You have the hypno-master snake-people using suggestion on my low-Wisdom fighter!? Why are you picking on me like that!?"

Whether players complain when this happens comes to expectations of play, I think, and if the GM says "go ahead and play Murda McHobo" then he's kinda setting up an expectation that the character will be viable; if he then targets the tanked CHA, repeatedly, the player might get kinda cheezed. I don't have much patience for that kind of player, generally, but in that case I could see his point.

[Segev]

That's the whole "murderhobo" trope/cliche, innit? I don't need to interact politely with people if I'm just going to kill everyone. I think the distinction between "the game as played ignores the defect" and "the player ignores the defect" is one without much difference in practice.

I was actually referring to a problem I saw in L5R, which DOES have a heavy emphasis on the social/political side of the game in terms of how the game expects to be played, but which has limited to no real mechanics with any teeth for affecting player behavior or enabling players to interact with the NPCs. So you'd see players who recognized this and did all the OOC research to be able to present exquisite gifts, thoughtful behaviors, and otherwise basically have their on-paper crude and crass Hobo Korosu be this silver-tongued, super-polite, favor-trading genius while also having every ounce of mechanical oomph invested in combat, so they were keeping up with or outdoing people who invested heavily in the social aspect of a build because they tricked the DM into letting them bypass any need to roll anything at all. Meanwhile, those who invested in the social side couldn't just describe how awesome their characters were in combat; the dice rolls still mattered.

But that's a flaw in a game which allows investment in something it deems important, but then lacks subsystem support to actually make those mechanics useful and says to "roleplay it." I like roleplay; don't get me wrong. But I also like mechanics to DO something.

Whether players complain when this happens comes to expectations of play, I think, and if the GM says "go ahead and play Murda McHobo" then he's kinda setting up an expectation that the character will be viable; if he then targets the tanked CHA, repeatedly, the player might get kinda cheezed. I don't have much patience for that kind of player, generally, but in that case I could see his point.

The issue really only arises when the expectation of how often something will come up is different. And whether they're getting targeted more than other players' weaknesses are.

I actually have more noticed the problem when a player has designed something that is untouchable without exploiting its weaknesses, who then whines that the weaknesses are exploited. This is a problem on both sides of the GM screen, mind; balancing how often they bring a threat to bear against the character with how big a threat it is.

The example I'm thinking of involved a glass cannon who relied on stealth and distance but couldn't take even one hit. If they were under fire, one hit might well be all it took to take them out, and the GM was bad at using "threat of discovery" as the threat metric to pressure the PC, rather than just having "discovery" be a thing that he made happen and then used AoE to try to apply pressure.

It can be very tricky to train a GM to recognize things other than "am I doing hp damage?" as a metric for how much pressure and stress a PC and his player feels.

[prabe]

I was actually referring to a problem I saw in L5R, which DOES have a heavy emphasis on the social/political side of the game in terms of how the game expects to be played, but which has limited to no real mechanics with any teeth for affecting player behavior or enabling players to interact with the NPCs. So you'd see players who recognized this and did all the OOC research to be able to present exquisite gifts, thoughtful behaviors, and otherwise basically have their on-paper crude and crass Hobo Korosu be this silver-tongued, super-polite, favor-trading genius while also having every ounce of mechanical oomph invested in combat, so they were keeping up with or outdoing people who invested heavily in the social aspect of a build because they tricked the DM into letting them bypass any need to roll anything at all. Meanwhile, those who invested in the social side couldn't just describe how awesome their characters were in combat; the dice rolls still mattered.

But that's a flaw in a game which allows investment in something it deems important, but then lacks subsystem support to actually make those mechanics useful and says to "roleplay it." I like roleplay; don't get me wrong. But I also like mechanics to DO something.

That's fair. Sorry if my jumping to the wrong conclusion bothered you. I've not played L5R, mainly because the purported emphasis on matters of court ... doesn't appeal to me.

The issue really only arises when the expectation of how often something will come up is different. And whether they're getting targeted more than other players' weaknesses are.

The example I'm thinking of involved a glass cannon who relied on stealth and distance but couldn't take even one hit. If they were under fire, one hit might well be all it took to take them out, and the GM was bad at using "threat of discovery" as the threat metric to pressure the PC, rather than just having "discovery" be a thing that he made happen and then used AoE to try to apply pressure.

It can be very tricky to train a GM to recognize things other than "am I doing hp damage?" as a metric for how much pressure and stress a PC and his player feels.

Yeah. There are ways to threaten a character without hurting them, but finding them isn't always easy. OTOH, depending on how cannonlike the class cannon was, it might make sense for the opposition to target that character (or try to).

[Max_Killjoy]

I was actually referring to a problem I saw in L5R, which DOES have a heavy emphasis on the social/political side of the game in terms of how the game expects to be played, but which has limited to no real mechanics with any teeth for affecting player behavior or enabling players to interact with the NPCs. So you'd see players who recognized this and did all the OOC research to be able to present exquisite gifts, thoughtful behaviors, and otherwise basically have their on-paper crude and crass Hobo Korosu be this silver-tongued, super-polite, favor-trading genius while also having every ounce of mechanical oomph invested in combat, so they were keeping up with or outdoing people who invested heavily in the social aspect of a build because they tricked the DM into letting them bypass any need to roll anything at all. Meanwhile, those who invested in the social side couldn't just describe how awesome their characters were in combat; the dice rolls still mattered.

But that's a flaw in a game which allows investment in something it deems important, but then lacks subsystem support to actually make those mechanics useful and says to "roleplay it." I like roleplay; don't get me wrong. But I also like mechanics to DO something.

L5R, at least 4th Edition, also had that problem with things like crafting... it then added crafting-focused schools later, but there was no system upon which to build the abilities, so it was a bunch of disconnected stuff attached to no underlying base.

[Segev]

That's fair. Sorry if my jumping to the wrong conclusion bothered you. I've not played L5R, mainly because the purported emphasis on matters of court ... doesn't appeal to me.

Didn't offend/bother me, just made me realize I'd given the wrong impression, so provoked me to clarify. I really hate being unclear.

Yeah. There are ways to threaten a character without hurting them, but finding them isn't always easy. OTOH, depending on how cannonlike the class cannon was, it might make sense for the opposition to target that character (or try to).

It can be challenging, yeah. And despite the stealthy sniper's complaints about being "singled out," the GM was actually not aiming at that PC particularly often considering that the PC was a high-stealth long-range sniper who...didn't always move too terribly far between shots.

L5R, at least 4th Edition, also had that problem with things like crafting... it then added crafting-focused schools later, but there was no system upon which to build the abilities, so it was a bunch of disconnected stuff attached to no underlying base.

Crafting, huh? Definitely not something I saw much of in 3e and 2e (2e was nightmarishly unkind to PCs in terms of difficulties for even stuff that was supported).

But yes, that sounds like exactly the problem: the social rules amounted to "make some rolls and...uh... they might ... convince people. Who don't ahve any rules about how they react to them, judge your persuasiveness, etc."

[Morty]

Something to keep in mind is that there's no such thing as an intelligence score in real life. An intelligence attribute in any RPG that uses it is going to be a mechanical abstraction that covers some particular kinds of intelligence.

So instead of trying to play some hyper-rational organic computer that always makes right choices, consider why you've made an intelligent character. You took a high Intelligence score for a reason. Are they a scholar? Scientist? Engineer? Wizard? Tactical mastermind? Then play your character accordingly.