How do you play a character who is much smarter than you are?

Asking for a friend...

"I would like to take a minute and make an investigation check to try to figure out what the hell is going on, please."

Poorly.

"Oh I know this one well! It's name... escapes me at the moment."

I think the easiest way is to ask the question “what does my character know about it?” In a lot of ways, it rests in the hands of the DM and how the world is described, how NPCs interact with them, and what information is provided.

I have a player at my table that has a high-charisma character, though the player is…lacking in social graces, shall we say. And as a DM, I’ll admit, it’s hard to remember it when he’s making all these gaffes and generally being a boor.

Morrus said:

How do you play a character who is much smarter than you are?

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Since 3rd edition, my take is that my character is not smarter (or less smart) than me. He might have a better memory, spot details better than me, make his spells harder to resist than mine, but the character is as smart as I am.

Similarly, i can decide that one of my character’s traits is having a short attention span, or having a hard time grasping complex problems, or have a preference for simpler plans, but the character won’t be less smart than I am.

i encourage my players to do the same when I DM.

On paper *I'm* much smarter than the character I play in my everyday life, so I just rely on personal experience.

first, i look for abilities that might can be used to reflect superior brains than i got.

Lucky might be a good example of that - imagining this as one of the many varieties of "i worked thru that one try in my mind and it failed - so lets do it this way" we have seen in fiction and film.

The feat which gives you two battlemaster maneuvers and one d6 for it can cover a lot of "me make good choices" type effects.

Perhaps even argue your case for "inspiring leader feat" to be repackaged with "intelligent leader feat" based on INT 13 with the THP coming from tactical advice and planning.

Obviously a lot of "what does my character know" and "can i look at that" and "does my character see any pattern or rhyme or reason to this" etc to get your character's abilities and strengths in lore, investigation etc into play as much as possible.

Some Gms allow INT as initiative in some games - some non-5e systems have that as a feat say. I am more an INIT from WIS/Perception myself.

Some systems actually had a deduction skill based off INT which was specifically "you ask the Gm for clues your guy has put together" type hints.

But if you are looking for just "he makes better plans than i do" out of a high int score - 5e does not explicitly give you that benefit. Some game systems allow it or even give you chances to buy it. in HERO long ago "shareable overall skill levels bonuses requires an INT check" was a common enough mastermind type feature.

I mean, ultimately, you can’t. A high intelligence score and training in lots of Int-related skills can only get you so far. At the end of the day, you can only come up with ideas you can come up with. Best just to accept that the ability that is called Intelligence means nothing more and nothing less than how likely you are to succeed at the subset of d20 rolls that are modified by said score, and make decisions as you think your character would, to the best of your ability.

Inelligently?