D&D 5E Geniuses with 5 Int

[Maxperson]

Forcing me to roll the check isn't playing my character, though. Making a knowledge check isn't about something my character does in the fiction. It's about establishing backstory.

The DM has decided to step into your character and determine what he knows and why. That's playing my character. That it is dependent on a check doesn't change that he is forcing my character to take an action that that I the player am against. Again, that's playing my character. He can't do that.

Suppose the question was not about the formula for the phasing potion, but the location of the chief alchemist's office. Again, I the player have no idea (we've never even used a map of the college, as it's just something that comes up during downtime), but surely my PC at least has a chance of knowing.

There wouldn't be a roll for that. I still remember where the offices were on campus. Again, the in-game back story would establish that. When the outcome is in doubt, a roll is needed to know something. When the outcome is in doubt, it's not up to the DM to force the check. The player of the PC has to decide to roll or just abandon the possible knowledge.

I don't understand on what basis you are saying that I, as a player, can simply decree what has happened to my PC in the past - a type of "god's eye view" authorship - yet you are adamant that the narration for ZoT can't unfold in the same way.

Because it's not the same. With Eloelle, she already has established that she knows the answer. She can't both know and not know the answer at the same time, nor can she simultaneously have backstory to demonstrate both situations.

 

[Maxperson]

What if the PC's CHA is 8? Since when does STR score determine anyone's reactions in a way that would be problematic in this particular case?

Why would it be a problem. Lots of women don't care how a guy looks, preferring muscles. And that's if you are playing that charisma = looks, which it doesn't. Lot's of women are with jerks, too. A low charisma doesn't deter them.

I want to be clear on this: are you and @Yardiff saying that Gygax, in his DMG, is wrong in describing one possible narration for low DEX as being that the character is agile and slippery in the grasp, but weak in all other respects (hence slow, poor balance, poor hand-eye coordination, etc).

Dex (precision) and agility (speed) are two very different things and in at least one D&D game I play in, are different stats for that reason. Strength is just strength. It doesn't have wide divisions like that.

 

[TwoSix]

She is more playable than the hobgoblin, but still has to have things house ruled around her to preserve her fiction.

Ya know, I sort of resent that considering I actually am playing the hobgoblin, with a group that's predominantly trad gamers, and not having any sort of issue.

 

[Maxperson]

Ya know, I sort of resent that considering I actually am playing the hobgoblin, with a group that's predominantly trad gamers, and not having any sort of issue.

Hey, if they're okay with strength =/= strength, then more power to you guys. Have fun. My group wouldn't be okay with that sort of gross inconsistency.

 

[pemerton]

Ya know, I sort of resent that considering I actually am playing the hobgoblin, with a group that's predominantly trad gamers, and not having any sort of issue.

I was re-reading the end-game of the "Dissociated Mechanics" thread yesterday, and encountered the same phenomena: another poster, who's not part of my game, describing it back to me in ways that are wildly distorting.

"Yeah, it's great that you guys enjoy your incoherent narrative and dissociated nonsense - but we wouldn't put up with it for a moment!"

 

[Ovinomancer]

Upthread, I suggested that the roll of a saving throw is something that happens at the table, in the real world, and doesn't obviously or immediately correlate to something happening in the fiction.

This characterisation of saving throws was rejected by [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].

Allowing the player to choose not to make a knowledge roll is treating the skill roll in the same way as I prefer to treat the saving throw: as something that takes place in the real world, at the table. If it was simply a model of ingame causal processes (as Maxperson asserts to be case for a saving throw), then the player would be obliged to make the check to determine whether or not the PC knew the information in question.

[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] has said, upthread, that ZoT talks in in-fiction terms (about creatures in the zone, etc), and that this is a reason for treating the ZoT saving throw in Maxperson's preferred fashion. But the rules for INT and knowledge checks are no different in this respect (SRD p 81):

An Intelligence check comes into play when you need to draw on logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning.​

Clearly the "you" in that passage is talking about the character in the fiction, not the player in the real world. (Eg a player in the real world doesn't need to make an INT check in order to be permitted to draw on his/her education in the playing of the game.)

What, then, is the basis for treating knowledge checks in a different, more metagame fashion than saving throws? And why can Zone of Truth not be treated in the same way (which is what the Eloelle narration requires)?

Simply that a lack of an ability check means the outcome isn't uncertain. A save is predicated on there being an uncertain outcome. If the player wishes to remove the uncertainty, I'm willing to grant them the ability to narrate a failed save in lieu of a roll. I am not willing to allow the narration of a success on a save or an ability check without a successful roll, though. If the player has stated an action, and I've asked for an ability check to determine the outcome, they can't narrate a success. They can always choose to fail.

See, treated the same way.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ovinomancer, I think you may have mistaken a necessary condition for a sufficient one.

(Qv: it is a characteristic of mammals that they are warm-blooded. This doesn't entail that an animal is a mammal just because it is warm-blooded.)

As Bold was asked his definition of genius, and this was the only condition he presented, I think you're imagining more conditions that he chose to, for some reason, not explain in his definition of genius. I can only work with what's presented, and he presented only that. Until he expands, though, you're only guessing that my examples aren't on target.

Gygax's DMG, p 15:

The dexterity rating includes the following physical characteristics: hand-eye coordination, agility, reflex speed, precision, balance, and actual speed of movement in running. It would not be unreasonable to claim that a person with a low dexterity might well be quite agile, but have low reflex speed, poor precision, bad balance, and be slow of foot (but slippery in the grasp).​

How do we reconcile this character's slipperiness in the grasp with his/her tendency to lose grappling contests? By adopting a non-default narration of what is going on when, despite being slippery, s/he is repeatedly grappled by those of even ordinary DEX.

The same approach to narration is used by [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] in the case of the brawny but low-STR hobgoblin.

The Eloelle scenario pushes this approach further again, but the basic spirit of it, and the relationship between mechanics and narration that are involved, is the same.

I disagree with Maxperson -- I'm perfectly fine with the ideas presented by Gygax, and by Six's hobgoblin, and by 3 of the 4 "geniuses" presented in the OP. They are find reasons to narrate the results of the mechanics in a coherent (if a bit juvenile and ridiculous in the case of the "geniuses") within their concept.

However, I must strongly disagree that LOL is a further expansion of this concept. I say this because the core of the LOL concept is to narrate counter to the mechanics in relation to INT. And to divorce completely the fictional narration from the events of the game, going so far as to maintain two separate narrative threads -- what LOL narrates vs what happens for everyone else in the game. That's not an expansion of the narrative license discussed by Gygax and shown by Six and the other "geniuses". It's an abrogation of one of the core concepts of the game -- that you're telling a joint story and using the game mechanics to resolve the uncertain parts that come up in that story. LOL is just telling a story, not playing a game.

 

[Max_Killjoy]

Personally, I view the mechanics of the game as modelling the "reality" of the setting and story, not defining it.

A low-INT character who is actually very intelligent, or a high-INT character who is actually a dullard, represents a failure somewhere in the modelling process, possibly in the way the game's mechanics were constructed, or in the way that the character was constructed.

 

[Maxperson]

Personally, I view the mechanics of the game as modelling the "reality" of the setting and story, not defining it.

A low-INT character who is actually very intelligent, or a high-INT character who is actually a dullard, represents a failure somewhere in the modelling process, possibly in the way the game's mechanics were constructed, or in the way that the character was constructed.

Yeah. Those on the other side want to play a dumb genius. Not only is Eloelle a moron, she's also an oxymoron!

 

[TwoSix]

Personally, I view the mechanics of the game as modelling the "reality" of the setting and story, not defining it.

A low-INT character who is actually very intelligent, or a high-INT character who is actually a dullard, represents a failure somewhere in the modelling process, possibly in the way the game's mechanics were constructed, or in the way that the character was constructed.

To sum up several years and several thousand posts, yes, the modelling approach is a common approach to the game, but certainly not the only valid one.