Intelligence is not a superpower

[Tanarii]

People usually don't stick to the rules that closely though. Most tables I've been at put memory under the purview of INT.
I do like however that a moderately good Autohypnosis bonus essentially gives you perfect memory. It's one of those unbounded game states 3.5 is famous for. Like pun pun and the d2 crusader.

In 5e, it comes from a feat. The PC remembering something the player doesn't recall (ie happened earlier in the game session or a previous one) in the heat of the moment when the info is needed right now would be an Int check with the DM setting the automatic success, a DC, or automatic failure. In 5e, a High Int score means up to a +5 bonus to that score, or up to +11/+17 if it's a subset of Investigation or a Lore skill.

Have I argued that somewhere?

In theory yes, by giving a laundry list of things not covered by Int scores in any edition of D&D. (If you weren't talking about D&D, possibly no.)

[martixy]

In theory yes, by giving a laundry list of things not covered by Int scores in any edition of D&D. (If you weren't talking about D&D, possibly no.)

Ah, assumption miscommunication. Disregard that. I was not thinking in terms of D&D rules, but abstractly and failed to convey that.

My latest post summarizing my position explicitly does not make this mistake.

Yes, as an indirect example to establish a 'super power' category as distinct, and thereby implicitly justifying broadening what things should be covered:

Though I am uncertain what creating a distinct category has to do with broadening the scope of a certain ability. (I feel this word is getting a bit overused) but these are kind of orthogonal.

[Tanarii]

Ah, assumption miscommunication. Disregard that. I was not thinking in terms of D&D rules, but abstractly and failed to convey that.

My latest post summarizing my position explicitly does not make this mistake.

Which is the OP entire point. Folks thinking about Intelligence based on non-rule terms, and granting it in-game effectively super powers as a result.

This actually goes for Wisdom even more so, since the game meaning of Wisdom ability score is even less connected to what people, think of as wisdom out of game. It's just that folks don't tend to give Demi-god or superhero level abilities for a 20 Wisdom, even if they attribute extra things to it that have nothing to do with the stat. With Intelligence, they often do.

[martixy]

Which is the OP entire point. Folks thinking about Intelligence based on non-rule terms, and granting it in-game effectively super powers as a result.

On one hand, I agree with that point. (Haven't I reiterated my agreement several times over across multiple posts already?) In the sense that reasoning about people's motivations should the under Charisma, and not folded into Int. Or that Int is exploded into additional skills like Knowledge/Lore - any expertise should fall under those skills. That's kind of obvious.

But unless there is a tactics skill, tactics should fall under int (most logically IMO). And unless there is a "speed learning" skill, attributes related to learning (which is under int) such as speed and efficiency of learning, also fall under int. (Explicit refutation of several statements from OP's first post.)

I understand if he wanted to rant about how people don't think enough what should be part of int and what isn't, but he went about it in a very roundabout way.

And rather critically, the thread title is woefully misleading, which is where I started my conversation.

TL;DR
See thread title, click on thread, expecting conversation based on listed topic. Take several posts to find out people are talking about something completely unrelated. (And potentially bow out when you can't find common language with anyone...?)

[Batcathat]

See thread title, click on thread, expecting conversation based on listed topic. Take several posts to find out people are talking about something completely unrelated. (And potentially bow out when you can't find common language with anyone...?)

While I agree the thread title is rather misleading (it feels like every tenth post in this thread is someone new seemingly only having read the title and saying that super intelligence is a super power) the very start of the OP is pretty much "people interpret high intelligence to mean X, Y and Z which it doesn't according to the rules".

[Tanarii]

TL;DR
See thread title, click on thread, expecting conversation based on listed topic. Take several posts to find out people are talking about something completely unrelated. (And potentially bow out when you can't find common language with anyone...?)

Oh yeah, been there, when I've seen thread title, already formulated my response in my head, clicked on thread, and posted without really reading the OP, just skimming it.

[martixy]

While I agree the thread title is rather misleading (it feels like every tenth post in this thread is someone new seemingly only having read the title and saying that super intelligence is a super power) the very start of the OP is pretty much "people interpret high intelligence to mean X, Y and Z which it doesn't according to the rules".

Which I also addressed. Notably even before people pointed it out. But we keep talking about the initial misunderstanding.
Good summary though.

Oh yeah, been there, when I've seen thread title, already formulated my response in my head, clicked on thread, and posted without really reading the OP, just skimming it.

I do actually make it a habit to read the OP. But it wasn't coherent enough for me to understand which of 2 possible arguments OP is making, so I covered both. But people latched on to the wrong interpretation without ever acknowledging what I got right. (I guess "Yep, you got it right here" isn't much of a conversation maker.)

Edit: To be honest, my initial hope for this thread was to find interesting ways in which intelligence (and wisdom and charisma, and their derived skills) can be a superpower. For example - maybe a character with 40 int can hold like 10 active thoughts in his head at the same time.

[Willie the Duck]

I do actually make it a habit to read the OP. But it wasn't coherent enough for me to understand which of 2 possible arguments OP is making, so I covered both. But people latched on to the wrong interpretation without ever acknowledging what I got right. (I guess "Yep, you got it right here" isn't much of a conversation maker.)

So the blame for the way this turned out is the OPs for being unclear, and everyone else for focusing on your error, not you for making one, do I have this right? I would think a better strategy would be saying something like, 'yes, you are correct, my mistake. Now, on to my other point...'

Edit: To be honest, my initial hope for this thread was to find interesting ways in which intelligence can be a superpower.

Good, that sounds like something we could all work on. Let's focus on that. What kind of framework -- rule structure (something like was mentioned on page 1), or how to run a super-intelligent NPC villain (just by having them actually be crazy-prepared, as short cuts to this end result was the OP's primary complaint)?

[Max_Killjoy]

Not the first time this has been discussed in these forums, but, part of the disconnect here is pretty core to RPG discussions/disputes.

What are the attributes on a character sheet in an RPG? What do they represent, and what is the decision process when assigning them? Fiction-layer-first, or mechanics-layer-first?

1) "This character is strong, and therefore should have a high Strength characteristic, and things affected by having a high Strength will therefore reflect that the character is strong."

-or-

2) "Based on the mechanical effects of a high Strength characteristic, I am going to assign this character a high Strength, and therefore they interact with the rules affected by Strength more advantageously."


When looking at an Intelligence characteristic, the former will say that the character has a high INT because it represents the character being intelligent in at least some ways, while the latter will say that INT only reflects the specific mechanical effects of INT, nothing more.

The latter also leads to a giant pet peeve of mine in gaming -- the player who says, at least internally, "My character doesn't need the mechanical effects of a high INT, and therefore I can use INT as a dump stat, and use my own knowledge and analytical ability instead, as long as I can cleverly avoid rolling anything." Imagine how much pushback there would be at most gaming tables if someone said "I don't need to give my character a high STR, I'm very strong so I can work around it" or "I'm a marathon runner so I don't need to waste a good roll / more points on a high CON."

[martixy]

Good, that sounds like something we could all work on. Let's focus on that. What kind of framework -- rule structure (something like was mentioned on page 1), or how to run a super-intelligent NPC villain (just by having them actually be crazy-prepared, as short cuts to this end result was the OP's primary complaint)?

Actually there's 2 aspects of this.

1. What would superhuman... well, anything really entail.
2. How can we emulate its effects in game.

A superhuman tactician would be able to appraise a certain terrain flawlessly and for example call upon his knowledge of all battles waged in the last 100 years (so one is superhuman ability to model hypothetical scenarios, the other superhuman memory).

In game that might be emulated by the Paranoid Contingency ability from the post you linked.

Also, retconning is the first, and most obvious method of emulating superhuman mental capacities. But is it the only possible method?

[Max_Killjoy]

Good, that sounds like something we could all work on. Let's focus on that. What kind of framework -- rule structure (something like was mentioned on page 1), or how to run a super-intelligent NPC villain (just by having them actually be crazy-prepared, as short cuts to this end result was the OP's primary complaint)?

Those sorts of retroactive abilities, etc, are a complaint I have about a lot of post-Forge systems, really.

To me there's zero difference between "Once per X you may declare that the character actually prepared for this already and therefore gets Y bonus against the attack", etc... and effing Calvinball.

[Tanarii]

2) "Based on the mechanical effects of a high Strength characteristic, I am going to assign this character a high Strength, and therefore they interact with the rules affected by Strength more advantageously."

Its this one. Unless a specific game says otherwise. It started out as this one, it's also ways been this one, and yes, it's not uncommon for people to make incorrect assumptions based on the name of the stat.

The RPG community would have been better served if the original six stats had been called Melee Fighting, Arcane Casting, Clerical Casting, Dodging and Missile Fire, Extra Hit Points, and Henchmen and Followers.

[martixy]

Its this one. Unless a specific game says otherwise. It started out as this one, it's also ways been this one, and yes, it's not uncommon for people to make incorrect assumptions based on the name of the stat.

The RPG community would have been better served if the original six stats had been called Melee Fighting, Arcane Casting, Clerical Casting, Dodging and Missile Fire, Extra Hit Points, and Henchmen and Followers.

This thread would like to disagree with you.

[Quertus]

Not the first time this has been discussed in these forums, but, part of the disconnect here is pretty core to RPG discussions/disputes.

What are the attributes on a character sheet in an RPG? What do they represent, and what is the decision process when assigning them? Fiction-layer-first, or mechanics-layer-first?

1) "This character is strong, and therefore should have a high Strength characteristic, and things affected by having a high Strength will therefore reflect that the character is strong."

-or-

2) "Based on the mechanical effects of a high Strength characteristic, I am going to assign this character a high Strength, and therefore they interact with the rules affected by Strength more advantageously."


When looking at an Intelligence characteristic, the former will say that the character has a high INT because it represents the character being intelligent in at least some ways, while the latter will say that INT only reflects the specific mechanical effects of INT, nothing more.

The latter also leads to a giant pet peeve of mine in gaming -- the player who says, at least internally, "My character doesn't need the mechanical effects of a high INT, and therefore I can use INT as a dump stat, and use my own knowledge and analytical ability instead, as long as I can cleverly avoid rolling anything." Imagine how much pushback there would be at most gaming tables if someone said "I don't need to give my character a high STR, I'm very strong so I can work around it" or "I'm a marathon runner so I don't need to waste a good roll / more points on a high CON."

Those sorts of retroactive abilities, etc, are a complaint I have about a lot of post-Forge systems, really.

To me there's zero difference between "Once per X you may declare that the character actually prepared for this already and therefore gets Y bonus against the attack", etc... and effing Calvinball.

I have no love of retroactive abilities, either (unless they involve actual Chronomancy). They're the "win button" that removes the actual gameplay.

Your other stance is interesting. You prefer "fiction first" ("the rules are the map") over "rules first" ("the rules are the territory"), disliking the latter because it leads to bad role-playing. But do you still dislike "rules first" when it is coupled good role-playing? Do you like fiction first coupled with bad role-playing?

Or… systems which don't have as many mental stats as D&D… how do you take to people effectively arbitrarily assigning their characters level of competence in those missing stats?

Or… people in this thread have disagreed regarding what different stats cover. How do you feel about people role-playing differently based on those different interpretations?

[Max_Killjoy]

Its this one. Unless a specific game says otherwise. It started out as this one, it's also ways been this one, and yes, it's not uncommon for people to make incorrect assumptions based on the name of the stat.

The RPG community would have been better served if the original six stats had been called Melee Fighting, Arcane Casting, Clerical Casting, Dodging and Missile Fire, Extra Hit Points, and Henchmen and Followers.

Which is a valid preference, but not absolute truth.

Many systems, and many gamers, take the other view -- the mechanical representation of the character gets a high X attribute because the character is X.

[Telok]

...fer "fiction first" ("the rules are the map") over "rules first" ("the rules are the territory"), disli...

Confused about the stuff in parentheses. Requesting clarification.

[Satinavian]

Those sorts of retroactive abilities, etc, are a complaint I have about a lot of post-Forge systems, really.

To me there's zero difference between "Once per X you may declare that the character actually prepared for this already and therefore gets Y bonus against the attack", etc... and effing Calvinball.

No, those are fine. They are certainly not Calvinball as they usually have very well defined boundaries. Instead they are more like equippment kits assumed to contail all the tools you would need for a certain range of tasks without requiring you to prepare them in detail. Or like spell component pouches which follow the same idea of "just assume that the character prepared all cheapcomponents for all spells he might want to cast".

[Morty]

The latter also leads to a giant pet peeve of mine in gaming -- the player who says, at least internally, "My character doesn't need the mechanical effects of a high INT, and therefore I can use INT as a dump stat, and use my own knowledge and analytical ability instead, as long as I can cleverly avoid rolling anything." Imagine how much pushback there would be at most gaming tables if someone said "I don't need to give my character a high STR, I'm very strong so I can work around it" or "I'm a marathon runner so I don't need to waste a good roll / more points on a high CON."

What is the lower limit of an intelligence attribute needed to analyze a situation or come up with a good plan? The comparison with strength and constitution doesn't really land, because as has been emphasized multiple times in this tread, it's a lot harder (or even impossible) to quantify intelligence. Strength is in fact the easiest attribute to measure out of the "traditional" selection.

As far as knowing things, well, knowledge skills exist for a reason. Or backgrounds and other mechanical means of deciding what the character is and isn't familiar with.

[martixy]

Confused about the stuff in parentheses. Requesting clarification.

There is a concept know as map and territory. The territory is basically the truth/reality as it is. The map is your perception or model of the truth/reality.

I first learned about this idea from a book by an AI researcher named Eliezer Yudkowsky on Rationality:
https://www.lesswrong.com/rationality
(He didn't invent it, just borrowed it.)

Well, originally these were a series of blog posts, which he later turned into a book (still available for free to read at the link above). Also, he wrote a long Harry Potter fanfiction (how I discovered the author in the first place) titled Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which tells you what happens when you bring logic and reason to the Potterverse.

[PhoenixPhyre]

What is the lower limit of an intelligence attribute needed to analyze a situation or come up with a good plan? The comparison with strength and constitution doesn't really land, because as has been emphasized multiple times in this tread, it's a lot harder (or even impossible) to quantify intelligence. Strength is in fact the easiest attribute to measure out of the "traditional" selection.

As far as knowing things, well, knowledge skills exist for a reason. Or backgrounds and other mechanical means of deciding what the character is and isn't familiar with.

Especially since "analyzing a situation" and "coming up with a good plan" isn't listed as part of the Intelligence stat in the first place!

I'm of the "the rules do exactly and only what they say they do" camp. Anything outside of that is up to the player (in cooperation with the DM), not the character. The rules are a game UI[1], a translation layer to handle some of the common cases of interactions. The default is free-form roleplay--the rules exist to take some of the burden off of the players and the DM by codifying interactions.

So no, super-high STR isn't a super-power. It just means you're better at things covered by the STR score. Super-high DEX doesn't make you move faster. Super-high WIS doesn't let you perceive things that aren't perceptible. Super-high CHA doesn't let you mind-control people.

And super-high INT isn't even correlated with being a good planner or being paranoid. Both of those are personality traits, not governd or influenced by the ability scores more than tangentially. Or with good tactics--tactical ability isn't listed. It's up to the player. And even wolves show pretty darn good tactics with their 3 INT. So the bar is really really low. It's rare that a PC has lower than an 8 INT, which is just slightly sub-normal. Not "drooling monosyllablic moron" territory. Just...not academically inclined. (Stereotyped, not real) jock. And those guys are pretty darn good at sports tactics.

[1] this does not obviate the need for a good thematic and mechanical fit between the rules and the subject matter of the game. Playing Civilization with a real-time FPS interface wouldn't be so fun. Neither would the reverse case. But the rules aren't a map of the territory, nor are they the territory itself. They're a set of conventions and common language to resolve uncertainty. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Max_Killjoy]

I have no love of retroactive abilities, either (unless they involve actual Chronomancy). They're the "win button" that removes the actual gameplay.

Your other stance is interesting. You prefer "fiction first" ("the rules are the map") over "rules first" ("the rules are the territory"), disliking the latter because it leads to bad role-playing. But do you still dislike "rules first" when it is coupled good role-playing? Do you like fiction first coupled with bad role-playing?

It's not just cases where it results in bad RP, it's also where it results in broken engagement/immersion because the rules produce nonsensical results around the edges and yet are given primacy over the obvious fiction-layer results. The "impossible platonic ideal" system is one wherein rules-first and fiction-first are indistinguishable.

Or… systems which don't have as many mental stats as D&D… how do you take to people effectively arbitrarily assigning their characters level of competence in those missing stats?

Or… people in this thread have disagreed regarding what different stats cover. How do you feel about people role-playing differently based on those different interpretations?

I would hope that a game missing those stats simply didn't "hit" those things, the way that a "medieval fantasy" game doesn't have computer or automotive skills. Some games don't have "characteristics" as such, no STR, no INT, etc, it's all just skills, named/narrative traits, etc. A game where how smart the character is matters, but with zero way to map "this is an exceptionally smart character", would IMO be a broken system.

There is room for good-faith disagreement over what the stats cover, what they mean. I would only be bothered if there was clearly bad intent behind the difference, such as trying to cheap out on a dump stat and then insisting that a different invested-in stat covered most of the same things.

[Max_Killjoy]

No, those are fine. They are certainly not Calvinball as they usually have very well defined boundaries. Instead they are more like equippment kits assumed to contail all the tools you would need for a certain range of tasks without requiring you to prepare them in detail. Or like spell component pouches which follow the same idea of "just assume that the character prepared all cheapcomponents for all spells he might want to cast".

I'm talking about mechanics that, for example, allow the character to retroactively change established facts, events, or explanations, to "emulate" things like "I realized what your plan was all along!" See, for example, Oceans 13, where the it looks like the team has been bested, and then they explain that no, they'd realized all along that a double-cross was going on, so they crossed the cross.

Confused about the stuff in parentheses. Requesting clarification.

It's an analogy... if the fiction layer -- PCs, NPCs, the setting, actions and interactions, etc -- is the actual landscape, the territory... then the rules are the map of that territory.

Which is the original thing, and which is the approximation?

When the map disagrees with the landscape, which is right? Can you cross a river on a bridge that the map shows is there, even though the physical bridge collapsed years ago?

[Morty]

So no, super-high STR isn't a super-power. It just means you're better at things covered by the STR score. Super-high DEX doesn't make you move faster. Super-high WIS doesn't let you perceive things that aren't perceptible. Super-high CHA doesn't let you mind-control people.

It does bear keeping in mind that just having a very high strength score usually isn't enough to pull off anything like examples of "super strength" from myth and fiction. Systems that incorporate characters strong like superheroes or demigods frequently have discrete abilities to represent that.

[Democratus]

RPG gaming is collaboratively creating fiction. If intelligence-as-superpower serves the fiction, then that's exactly what it should be.

[Max_Killjoy]

It does bear keeping in mind that just having a very high strength score usually isn't enough to pull off anything like examples of "super strength" from myth and fiction. Systems that incorporate characters strong like superheroes or demigods frequently have discrete abilities to represent that.

Depends on the system.

HERO, for example... base STR is 10, normal stops at 20, superhuman goes up to 60 or more depending on campaign scale.

60 STR is enough to lift 100 tons, leap ridiculous distances, and punch through a bunker wall.

[NichG]

On one hand, I agree with that point. (Haven't I reiterated my agreement several times over across multiple posts already?) In the sense that reasoning about people's motivations should the under Charisma, and not folded into Int. Or that Int is exploded into additional skills like Knowledge/Lore - any expertise should fall under those skills. That's kind of obvious.

But unless there is a tactics skill, tactics should fall under int (most logically IMO). And unless there is a "speed learning" skill, attributes related to learning (which is under int) such as speed and efficiency of learning, also fall under int. (Explicit refutation of several statements from OP's first post.)

High strength is a super power - in D&D a sufficiently high strength score can let you lift a 10 ton boulder, which is a superhuman accomplishment.

There's no existing skill that specifies breaking (as in literally destroying) laws of physics. However, things have Break DCs that determine the strength check needed to destroy them.

Therefore, a very high Strength should allow a character to destroy gravity as a universal law, end society's enforcement of a legal contact, or metagame arbitrarily ('breaking the fourth wall').

That kind of argument is the problem with 'everything not granted explicitly to an ability should implicitly be assigned to one' combined with the way that the concept of 'beyond human ability' extends the set of things to be assigned to an open set that could contain anything. It's similar to the 'magic is a broad concept, so there's no basis to say that a character shouldn't be able to invent a spell that does any particular thing they like'

What's the Charisma check DC to convince the ocean to get out of the way out of concern about you getting wet?

[PhoenixPhyre]

It does bear keeping in mind that just having a very high strength score usually isn't enough to pull off anything like examples of "super strength" from myth and fiction. Systems that incorporate characters strong like superheroes or demigods frequently have discrete abilities to represent that.

And that's my point. The score alone isn't enough. You need an ability that says you can do it. And really, that ability alone is enough. You could have a creature that isn't particularly dextrous, but can sprint at the speed of sound. Etc.

[Telok]

What's the Charisma check DC to convince the ocean to get out of the way out of concern about you getting wet?

In Exalted or similar games? Good question, I'm not conversant enough in their specific mechanics. Also plausable in Toon or possibly the Diskworld setting.

And thanks for the map explanations guys. I've met the idea before just not in that exact wording. It's another analogy that I feel is imprecise in important ways, similar to the "rules = user interface" as an all encompassing rpg rules analogy.

<deleted a lot not on topic>

Perhaps also hindering discussion is what people think superpowers are. I've seen write ups of the Sherlock Holmes literary character in d&ds and hero system at different point levels. Was human fighter with 20 int & wis in ad&d a "better" representation than a 200 point hero system with a literal "amazing deduction" power? Was a d&d 3.5 with 30 int and tons of skill points "better" than a 100 point hero with some skills taken to 19- on 3d6? And in game terms does it matter that only one of those can actually investigate if their player can't figure out the right questions to ask?

[NichG]

In Exalted or similar games? Good question, I'm not conversant enough in their specific mechanics. Also plausable in Toon or possibly the Diskworld setting.

This is kind of the point about needing an explicit framework that enables such things in order for them to be justified, not just identifying some things as super-human and as a result opening up the boundaries to anything else that could be called super-human.

Systems and setting materials set out what's reasonable and suggest things about how the world fundamentally works, but of course they only cover a bounded region of the world they're trying to establish. So this is all about what should going outside the bounds give an individual player the right to insist on (as opposed to having a group consensus to extend things to that area in a specific way).

[Tanarii]

RPG gaming is collaboratively creating fiction.

No, it is not. It might be for some people. But that is not a universal statement with a value of True.

Which is a valid preference, but not absolute truth.

Many systems, and many gamers, take the other view -- the mechanical representation of the character gets a high X attribute because the character is X.

Which is why I caveated my statement with unless the system tells you otherwise. Especially since I know playgrounders fallacy bugs you.

But I'll revise it to, it's historically accurate to the intended use of stats in the original source, D&D. People's perceptions changed to misusing/extending them, and I can't with certainty and without going back to reread the descriptions of all editions be sure they didn't change the purpose as that misuse/extension continued repeatedly.