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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest 6801328" data-source="post: 6867191">Obviously inspired by that other thread, the goal of this thread is to describe characters who are geniuses, but for whatever reason they often fail at tasks that, in game terms, require a dice roll with an Int modifier.How might you roleplay it?My offerings:Milton von Schlumberg the wizard is a genius, but he is also nearly crippled with self-doubt and insecurities.  He'll often be halfway through casting a spell when he'll suddenly have an irrational fear that he's doing it wrong, and he gets so distracted by this fear that he actually bungles the spell, causing it to miss entirely, or letting its target easily avoid its effects.Eloelle the Mistaken is a tiefling warlock, and she too is a genius.  But her Patron is paranoid, and frequently when Eloelle is about to solve a puzzle or discover a clue, her Patron will suddenly whisper in her mind, "Fool!  Don't share that knowledge with those worms you call your companions!  You'll spoil my whole scheme!"  So Eloelle intentionally gives her companions the wrong information.  Sometimes they figure it out anyway, and they have concluded that she's just an idiot, a deception which suits her master's plans perfectly.Deuce Baggins, halfling burglar extraordinaire, is a certified genius.  The thing is, Deuce is also in love.  And, as we all know, love makes us stupid.  He's so completely bonkers gonzo in love that he often has trouble focusing on the task at hand.  He might be searching bookshelves for the mechanism to open the secret door when he'll stumble across a book of Elvish poems, and 20 minutes later he's still there, looking for just the right poem to send his beloved.  And he can't even read Elvish.Calivan the half-orc ranger is a genius, but he'll loudly proclaim (and complain) that he's a misunderstood genius.  By which he means that nobody thinks he's a genius.  Calivan has a tiger companion who he talks to, but so far nobody has seen the tiger talk back.  Calivan has brilliant plans, but unfortunately they are also usually behind the understanding of his lesser companions, and due to their incompetence these plans often fail.  But Calivan's real problem is that he tries to hard to make his tiger feel valued as more than just an 800 pound machine of destruction, so against his better judgment he'll often defer to the tiger's authority on matters of Nature, Arcana, and History.  Alas, rarely is the tiger correct.</blockquote>

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