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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6208304" data-attributes="member: 4937">In general, let me address everyone that denies mental skills are of a different character than physical skills.Suppose you wanted to run Tomb of Horrors for your group.&nbsp; And, upon floating this idea, you learned that one player had prior to your suggestion bought a copy of the module and memorized the text.&nbsp;&nbsp; However, the player says, &quot;Don't worry.&nbsp; I'll just role-play my character and pretend that I don't actually know anything about the module.&quot;Would you agree that the player could do this so perfectly that his play during the game was exactly the same as the play and experience the player would have had he not already known every detail of the module?&nbsp;&nbsp; That is to say, the successes and revelations the player (and therefore the character) has would be simply and exactly the same set of insights the player would have had they never encountered the text, and any failures would be exactly the same failures that the player would have had made in ignorance?&nbsp;&nbsp; Because the only way you can argue that mental skills and physical skills are exactly the same, is if you can sustain the belief that metagame information never informs a player's choices.&nbsp;&nbsp; A character's intelligence is different than a character's strength because the character's intelligence - unlike his strength - is supposed to inform the choices that the character makes.&nbsp; But the character is in fact only an avatar of the player, and it is always the player that makes those choices.&nbsp;&nbsp; You can therefore dissociate completely a character's physical skills from the physical skills of the players, because these are pure action resolution, but you can never completely dissociate a character's mental skills from the mental skill of the player.&nbsp;&nbsp; A player's physical body does not extend into the game world, but the player's volition and insight does because ultimately the game world is a shared mental space.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6208304, member: 4937"] In general, let me address everyone that denies mental skills are of a different character than physical skills. Suppose you wanted to run Tomb of Horrors for your group. And, upon floating this idea, you learned that one player had prior to your suggestion bought a copy of the module and memorized the text. However, the player says, "Don't worry. I'll just role-play my character and pretend that I don't actually know anything about the module." Would you agree that the player could do this so perfectly that his play during the game was exactly the same as the play and experience the player would have had he not already known every detail of the module? That is to say, the successes and revelations the player (and therefore the character) has would be simply and exactly the same set of insights the player would have had they never encountered the text, and any failures would be exactly the same failures that the player would have had made in ignorance? Because the only way you can argue that mental skills and physical skills are exactly the same, is if you can sustain the belief that metagame information never informs a player's choices. A character's intelligence is different than a character's strength because the character's intelligence - unlike his strength - is supposed to inform the choices that the character makes. But the character is in fact only an avatar of the player, and it is always the player that makes those choices. You can therefore dissociate completely a character's physical skills from the physical skills of the players, because these are pure action resolution, but you can never completely dissociate a character's mental skills from the mental skill of the player. A player's physical body does not extend into the game world, but the player's volition and insight does because ultimately the game world is a shared mental space. [/QUOTE]

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