Do you reequire your players to think?

[RFisher]

I want the players to think, but I don't want them to be thinking about the rules. I want them to think about the situation & the best course of action.

 

[Chimera]

I suppose I could go play in a morgue. Just prop up the bodies and assign them PCs. No thinking required, no complaining, no off-topic conversation... I can railroad them to kingdom come and they won't say a word!

 

[Crothian]

I suppose I could go play in a morgue. Just prop up the bodies and assign them PCs. No thinking required, no complaining, no off-topic conversation... I can railroad them to kingdom come and they won't say a word!

one of my best games I played took place in a morgue. Toon will never be the same again.

 

[Altalazar]

I like my players to think when I DM. I also try and make there be multiple possible approaches to solving certain problems (including possibly those I haven't thought of but the players think of) - so there, the 'thinking' isn't necessarily needed to get from A to B, but the more thinking done, the more profitable (or short) the journey.

 

[Agback]

Well, I run a lot of material that amounts to mysteries, mystery-thrillers, thrillers, and police procedurals, and I gather that my reputation as a GM is that my games are very interesting, but that players really have to think hard. On the other hand, one player once said

"The only reason that we ever succeed in your adventures is that the villains over-estimate how smart we are and under-estimate how dangerous we are."

And another, after playing for three years in a weekly series of police procedurals (the campaign only ran during class terms at Uni, so say eighty-odd adventures), said

"You know, I think I only ever figured out one mystery in this entire campaign."

So perhaps I don't make them think very well.

 

[devilbat]

My games require the players think. Unfortunately, all too many times, they don't. Which is why were starting yet another new campaign next week.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

No. I require the characters to think. There is a big difference in what the players and what the characters know. I'll let players do research on what is standard practice in the campaign, ie skills and mannerisms. But unless a character has ranks in a skill, the player can not declare to take an action or act on information the character couldn't possibly know. However, if the character strives to take the character in a new direction, ansd has made this clear after gaining a level but before gaining the next one, that is the exception.

 

[Uder]

Voted yes, but it's more encouragement than requirement. A lot of situations I set up would be much easier if the PCs spent more time thinking...

Of course, I also discourage them from thinking, at least when it comes to their turn in combat. Thirty seconds to state what they're doing, or they're skipped. With eight players, it's a must.

 

[Dougal DeKree]

Yes!

The players have the opportunity of researching tech all by themselves. Depending on what they research and when the course of the SciFi-campaign changes. Until now most of them did a good job at that.

 

[Steverooo]

Yes. Always!

BTW recalculating skill points due to intelligence gain/loss is easy. At least for gain all you need to do is for every +1 modifier increase you gain skill points equal to your max ranks in a skill.

It's even easier than that, actually... INT increases to Skill Points don't go into effect, retroactively! (A lot of people don't seem to realize that!) See the last paragraph of PHB:10.