Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="The-Magic-Sword" data-source="post: 8704449" data-attributes="member: 6801252">Basically I 'resolve' the seeming conflict-- partially by taking for granted that the game's intelligence stat has more to do with knowledge than problem solving-- which is generally true, you don't roll to find out how good your combat tactics are after all and there is no puzzles skill; and partially by designing proactively in my adjudication, I have a mandate to make sure there's engaging game play to be had. I'm not going to let you roll an intelligence check to solve the puzzle because that isn't what the puzzle is there for and its easy enough to justify in the fiction, either by your character being the mouthpiece for the solution other characters in the party arrive at, or you overthinking it or not picking up on the lateral dimension of it, or whatever.I want to have nice things like puzzles in my game, and short of an entire party that hates them, I'm going to put puzzles in my game. Generally substituting the intelligence stat for meta-problem-solving is more about someone not respecting that other people at the table like puzzles, than it is about any real immersion concern, in my hard won experience.That said, there's a subtler variant of this, where players want to describe how they search the environment, but the game (PF2e in my case) has a search activity, but that's generally finessed at the table-- the party's standard operating procedure is governed by a roll, but a player may notice something in the description and focus in on it, probably making it easier to find. Which creates engaging game play without making the players think they'll find everything by just aggressively poking at everything. Though I do still have one player who is really aggressive about demanding to outline exactly what they do with their character's hands at every moment.</blockquote>

Verification