Should Insightful players have an advantage?

[S'mon]

Following on from 'should charismatic players have an advantage?' - I happen to have a player who is incredibly insightful, and always picks up on NPC motivations, plots etc very quickly - she can read characters like a book. But in 4e D&D there is an Insight skill which is supposed to deal with this stuff, right? And a lot of people think that charismatic players should not be allowed to have an advantage on charisma-related stuff, where eg Diplomacy rolls could be used.

So, how does that relate to Insight? Is the player playing her PC wrong when she plays her insightfully? I actually let/encouraged her to swap out a skill for Insight, which AIR is not a class skill for Rangers, more to let her take full advantage of her ooc insightfulness than because I thought she was doing it wrong. I think I'd do the same would go for a particularly (eg) diplomatic player.

 

[olshanski]

{EDITED THREADCRAP}
My point was that I believe players with natural talents should be able to take advantage of them regardless of the situation. We don't make Aaron Rodgers or David Beckham play football with a ball-and-chain strapped on their ankle.

I also prefer to play a version of D&D where diplomacy, and insight are determined by player skill an not by stats, so these questions are moot. Also, even where charisma is on a sheet, I tend to use that to determine NPC reactions prior to an encounter and numbers of henchmen/hirelings... I don't use it to guide in-chaacter interactions. A CHA3 character is exactly as persuasive in-game as his player pretends to be in real life.

 

[fuzzlewump]

I think insightful players... should be allowed to be insightful. An advantage? That depends. If she doesn't have the insight skill, there are times when she's going to be wrong and have no way of knowing it. I think such a thing can certainly be done if the motivations of NPC's, or their secrets, are left to the dice to determine. This player might just have you pegged as far as the kind of plots you run, and picks up on the patterns. Maybe some random determination would spice things up.

This can be something like, having a list of 4 suspects, and they each have a plausible reason for murdering a guy. Then determine randomly which one actually is the murderer. It can end up being the guy you originally wanted to be the red herring, or it could be the person everyone leasts suspects, etc. It will be random each time. In this case, skills might be more useful, and player knowledge less so.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The player being insightful just means that the character will be able to roll on Sense Motive, since the player has remembered to ask.

Way back when I had a player that would pretty much ignored botches on such things (Storyteller system) - if he got a botch he would ignore what I told him, knowing that it was false. So, once in a while I told him the exact truth, he ignored it and was surprised to find out that his botch had gotten him the right information, which he had then ignored. When he got upset I told him that his disregarding what I had told him was the botch.

The Auld Grump

 

[ComradeGnull]

Sense Motive for me always made more sense as an NPC skill, or for PC's to use in defending against feints, or when they have no other opportunity to figure out if someone is lying (it simulates 'intuition' and reading of body language, neither of which are necessarily reproducible in a gaming situation).

If a player can figure out from context that an NPC is lying, it seems reasonable that most people of average human intelligence would have a good chance to be able to do the same.

I think mostly when we talk about differences between PC intelligence and player intelligence, we are talking about 'figuring things out', given that most of the knowledge that a smart player would have (other than meta game knowledge) is inapplicable to most game worlds. In my mind, anyone of reasonably average intelligence has a pretty good chance of 'figuring out' connections between A and B and why people might or might not be lying. I really don't see calling for 'roll to see if you comprehend the villains motivation' as really necessary as long as someone is playing a PC within the range of normal human intelligence. There is a reason certain things are called common sense; you need not be particularly smart nor particularly insightful to exhibit it.

If you have a player with a 3 Int PC who consistently remembers metagame knowledge (like weaknesses of monsters never encountered before or setting-specific information or something), I think it makes sense to require rolls or somehow penalize that- feeding bad information intentionally, or changing monster abilities behind the scenes to keep them guessing.

 

[KidSnide]

I don't think this is the right way to look at it. Figuring out what's going on is part of what makes the game fun, and a major aspect of that is getting a read on NPCs. If a player is insightful, then they will simply be better at that aspect of the game. Although the Insight skill is a useful tool for allowing less insightful players to play more insightful characters, it is not a substitute for the players interacting with the gameworld world as directly as they can.

Because interacting directly with the gameworld (or as directly as possible) is actively fun, for most groups (many groups?) it's a bad idea to remove that fun aspect of the game just to generate a completely level playing field among the players. If a group interacts directly with the game, intelligent, insightful and charismatic players will have an advantage. It's not a goal to give them an advantage. It's simply not worth the cost to remove it.

Of course, skilled players will also sometimes decide to not to use their full advantage. A good charismatic player, playing an uncharismatic character will provide a great (i.e. entertaining for all) performance of ineffective persuasion. That same player, playing a charismatic character, would likely be more effective than his less charismatic party-mate.

The key is that -- when players play characters who are less effective socially or mentally than they are -- it is up to the player to "play down" to the character. Such a player's obligation to play down is best enforced with good example and social guidance than by game rules.

-KS

 

[Argyle King]

No, but insightful characters should.




Does a strong player automatically break free of grapples?

...a player with strong Willpower succeed on Will saves more often?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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Insightfully reported.

 

[Mort]

Following on from 'should charismatic players have an advantage?' - I happen to have a player who is incredibly insightful, and always picks up on NPC motivations, plots etc very quickly - she can read characters like a book. But in 4e D&D there is an Insight skill which is supposed to deal with this stuff, right? And a lot of people think that charismatic players should not be allowed to have an advantage on charisma-related stuff, where eg Diplomacy rolls could be used.

So, how does that relate to Insight? Is the player playing her PC wrong when she plays her insightfully? I actually let/encouraged her to swap out a skill for Insight, which AIR is not a class skill for Rangers, more to let her take full advantage of her ooc insightfulness than because I thought she was doing it wrong. I think I'd do the same would go for a particularly (eg) diplomatic player.

As in the Charisma thread, insightful players do have an advantage. They will be able to put threads together faster, ferret out motivations better, know when the NPC is lying regardless of roll and be able to influence the party accordingly (say by making sure the guy with the high insight skill is alerted and using it accordingly) etc.

The real question, is should they essentially have a mechanical advantage on top of that (by being able to ignore insight rolls etc.) and beyond a certain point (+2 to skill checks for particularly astute observations etc.) I think the answer should be no, unless the DM takes out insight as a skill entirely and leaves it up to player skill alone (If you're going to ignore it, why have it).

This does not mean insightful players are left out in the cold. They can take the insight skill and use it well along with any natural talent (this is one reason I give an extra free skill to the players, both in 3e and 4e - regardless of class or race), they can guide another player who has a good insight. Or, they can take a roleplaying challenge and play a low insight character - where the Player knows exactly what's going on but the character doesn't and the player has to react accordingly; leading to all sorts of interesting situations (people always talk about roleplaying the character - well this is a way to put up or shut up).

 

[Mort]

No, but insightful characters should.




Does a strong player automatically break free of grapples?

...a player with strong Willpower succeed on Will saves more often?

I take this position in every thread - but it never seems to make any headway.

Many people just treat the mental skills differently from the physical ones, even though "on paper" they should be given the same weight.

Part of this is the perception that physical skills are easy to quantify and mental skills are not. I don't really agree with this, but it sure seems a prominant view.

 

[Janx]

No, but insightful characters should.




Does a strong player automatically break free of grapples?

...a player with strong Willpower succeed on Will saves more often?

You example is flawed.

You are measuring my willpower against the game modifier to a Will Save. The answer is inherently No because my willpower is not represented in the game.

That's like asking if a dextrous player should have a higher AC? No.

This is then akin to Should a charismatic player get more henchmen? No. Because the tables say exactly how many henchmen you get, by your charisma score.

What the rules do not cover is how many good ideas you are allowed per session. it does not cover how you may phrase your statements to NPCs. It does not cover what the player may guess or deduce from the information presented to them.

there are literally no rules declaring how your PC must act if his INT, CHA or WIS is 6.

There are no rules preventing you from coming up with a good idea. Or to prevent you from executing on that good idea.

If I am so insightful that in the first encounter of the night with the NPC who is giving us our quest that I figure out he's really the bad guy and this is a screwya mission so I kill him, then so be it.

As a GM, I don't think you have any right to stop me (outside the bounds of the NPC defending himself, other NPCs coming to his aid because a PC just went postal, etc).

You tried to screw me and my intuition correctly deduced it and bypassed all of your adventure.

In the game world, my PC may be obligated to follow social norms and have a burden of proof (like how do I get out of what appears to be a spontaneous homicide). For the player, I get to act on whatever idea comes to mind, barring violation of the player/PC information barrier.

If I learn something the PC could not know (like seeing a note passed by another PC to the GM that it turns out the NPC is a bad guy). That's different than me listening to the NPC's proposal and just realizing that this dude is totally setting us up.

at that point, what the player thinks is equal to what the PC thinks.

For [MENTION=762]Mort[/MENTION] case of arguing the same point and seeing it disagreed with:
If a bunch of people disagree with you, you gotta consider that they have a point.

The physical stats measure VERY concret things in the game world. They are OBJECTIVE units of measure. 18 STR clearly grants a +4 to hit and enables carrying a set encumbrance load.

How wise is 10 WIS? Obviously it doesn't grant any extra spells or bonus to a willpower save. Does it prevent me from making rash choices? Does it force me to make rash choices over prudent ones?

The rules do not cover that.

 

[FireLance]

I would make a slight distinction between the player's mental skills and the character's mental skills. They can ostensibly have the same effect, but (IMO) are actually quite different.

A charismatic player isn't just making a convincing argument to an NPC. He is persuading reality itself (a.k.a. the DM) that the NPC is convinced. This has applications beyond simply influencing NPCs, from creating resources ("There has to be a rock around here somewhere, right?") to shifting probability in his favor ("This plan would work, right?") to causing events to unfold according to his desires ("This is what would logically happen, right?").

Similarly, an insightful player isn't just reading an NPC. He knows whether the NPC is lying or not by reading the DM. Again, this has other, broader uses, such as knowing where traps and treasure are hidden, and what is the "right" response to any given situation.

 

[Phebius]

The thing is the skills of the player the OP mentioned are only as insightful as the DM allows. A player can only draw insight with what is presented to them when it comes to motivations and what not of NPCs.

 

[Janx]

The thing is the skills of the player the OP mentioned are only as insightful as the DM allows. A player can only draw insight with what is presented to them when it comes to motivations and what not of NPCs.

I would not asssume that. Replace the word Insightful with the word Intuitive. Which is the Politically Correct word for Knows-Stuff-They-Can't-Possibly-Know. The means of their having this knowledge is beyond mortal ken.

A person like that just KNOWS the door on the left is trapped, and acts accordingly.

They just KNOW the NPC is really a bad person. And act accordingly.

How do you block that? Roll dice to determine if they are allowed to take action?

 

[Eccles]

Does it really matter? Surely an insightful, or charismatic (or, frankly, just plain loud) player is going to have a situational advantage over the others whatever the views of the ENworld community are. Should they have an advantage? No. Are they going to have an advantage anyway, whatever I think? Of course they are.

 

[Argyle King]

You example is flawed.

You are measuring my willpower against the game modifier to a Will Save. The answer is inherently No because my willpower is not represented in the game.

That's like asking if a dextrous player should have a higher AC? No.

This is then akin to Should a charismatic player get more henchmen? No. Because the tables say exactly how many henchmen you get, by your charisma score.

What the rules do not cover is how many good ideas you are allowed per session. it does not cover how you may phrase your statements to NPCs. It does not cover what the player may guess or deduce from the information presented to them.

there are literally no rules declaring how your PC must act if his INT, CHA or WIS is 6.

There are no rules preventing you from coming up with a good idea. Or to prevent you from executing on that good idea.

If I am so insightful that in the first encounter of the night with the NPC who is giving us our quest that I figure out he's really the bad guy and this is a screwya mission so I kill him, then so be it.

As a GM, I don't think you have any right to stop me (outside the bounds of the NPC defending himself, other NPCs coming to his aid because a PC just went postal, etc).

You tried to screw me and my intuition correctly deduced it and bypassed all of your adventure.

In the game world, my PC may be obligated to follow social norms and have a burden of proof (like how do I get out of what appears to be a spontaneous homicide). For the player, I get to act on whatever idea comes to mind, barring violation of the player/PC information barrier.

If I learn something the PC could not know (like seeing a note passed by another PC to the GM that it turns out the NPC is a bad guy). That's different than me listening to the NPC's proposal and just realizing that this dude is totally setting us up.

at that point, what the player thinks is equal to what the PC thinks.

For @Mort case of arguing the same point and seeing it disagreed with:
If a bunch of people disagree with you, you gotta consider that they have a point.

The physical stats measure VERY concret things in the game world. They are OBJECTIVE units of measure. 18 STR clearly grants a +4 to hit and enables carrying a set encumbrance load.

How wise is 10 WIS? Obviously it doesn't grant any extra spells or bonus to a willpower save. Does it prevent me from making rash choices? Does it force me to make rash choices over prudent ones?

The rules do not cover that.

If we're talking D&D? Wis 10 is average; likewise for Int 10.

Are you arguing that there's no way to discern the difference between someone with average brain power when compared to someone who is below average? Honestly, I do not feel the difference between a 10 and say an 11 would be very noticeable; however, I would personally argue that someone with a 6 in their mental stats would be noticeable during a conversation or social interaction.


That being said, I personally feel that part of the problem with this issue is the way that stats interact with classes in D&D. If you're playing a class which needs an ability, you are prompted to place a higher score in that ability. So, in that regard, I think stats in D&D have less meaning than they would in some other games. When I play D&D, I often don't place as much importance on the character sheet as I do when I play other games.


In games which handle abilities differently, don't have class & level in the same way that D&D does, and promote more meaning being given to stats, I believe a player should be more mindful of their character. I have no problem with a player having a spark of insight, and I really don't even have a problem with a mentally challenged (a character with Int 6, Wis 6, and Cha 6 would possibly be considered disabled) character having insight into a problem. However, I would find it hard to believe that the guy functioning at far below average mental faculties would be constantly dreaming up masterful battlefield tactics and things of that nature on a regular basis.

...Unless, he had skills or some other advantages which made that an exception. Examples I'm familiar with would be two characters I'm playing. While my GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Knight does not have the intelligence of the party Wizard, I have the Born War Leader talent which gives me a bonus to skills such as tactics, strategy, and etc. In the case of an upcoming Heroes Unlimited game, my character is far below average mentally; however, I have a psionic ability which allows me to have an innate understanding of machines; as such, while my character has a 3rd Grade education, he's capable of building robots.

I don't buy that -as a society or a game group- it's impossible to have an idea (or at least some general consensus) about how someone with mental scores of 6 might function differently compared to Mr. Average. The game rules don't tell me a lot of things, but I do not feel that should mean those things are somehow beyond definition and measurement. Just like many other topics (alignment, 'is X evil?') I see no reason why a group cannot share an understanding through communication about what the numbers of the game mean to the group.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As a player, I either play PCs whose "intuition" matches my own or endeavor to limit myself to the numbers on the page.

As a GM, I might give you some leeway, but if you consistently play your PC's mental stats & skills as better than they are (because you are smarter, wiser, more charismatic, etc.), I will start to limit you myself. "Roll for it." "How would your PC know that?" and other questions would become part of the regular flow of the session.

 

[S'mon]

That being said, I personally feel that part of the problem with this issue is the way that stats interact with classes in D&D. If you're playing a class which needs an ability, you are prompted to place a higher score in that ability. So, in that regard, I think stats in D&D have less meaning than they would in some other games. When I play D&D, I often don't place as much importance on the character sheet as I do when I play other games.

In games which handle abilities differently, don't have class & level in the same way that D&D does, and promote more meaning being given to stats, I believe a player should be more mindful of their character.

I agree with that, especially in 3e & 4e D&D where the game expects you to min-max stats to have a functional PC. STR 20 or INT 20 doesn't mean much when every Fighter or Wizard PC has that, every hobgoblin grunt min-3 has STR 18, etc.

In 1e AD&D, INT 20 was 'supra-genius', IQ 200, but in 4e I find it works best if you just treat it as a +5 on INT-based checks. It may be 'twice' normal human intelligence, but not on an IQ type scale; if I have to peg it then in IQ terms it's more like IQ 150*, or roughly 3+ standard deviations above the norm. Likewise the STR 20 guy with +5 on STR checks is just twice as strong as a normal (healthy, adult) man in most respects; and the STR or INT 5 guy (-3 on checks) is roughly half as strong or smart.

But I'd prefer not to have to try to relate raw 4e stats to reality at all; it's the derived d20 modifier that actually matters and that defines in-world reality.

*Treating it as IQ 150 rather than otherworldly IQ 200 has the advantage that the player may not necessarily be all that much less smarter than the PC! The player of the INT 20 Wizard PC in my FR campaign is an academic bioethicist, for instance.

 

[S'mon]

As a player, I either play PCs whose "intuition" matches my own or endeavor to limit myself to the numbers on the page.

As a player, me too, pretty much. It annoys me when I'm expected to play my INT 8 dwarf as extremely smart in order to solve some fiendish puzzle the DM has come up with.

I tend to see low mental stats as *permission* to play dumb (or foolish, or uncharismatic), not as a forced hindrance, though. If the GM is running a gamist step-up-or-die game, so he punishes players who don't bring their 'A' game, and then doubles down by also punishing players who play their PCs as smarter than their stats indicate, well I think that's unfair. If the 'game' is purely focused on exploratory simulation, then I think requiring players to stick to the listed stats is much more justifiable.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Oh my high RL ability. Well it does affect things. My "educated guesses" are stuff of legend. This became interesting race with gm, who I played, who had constant need to change how things were in his game if someone guessed anything right. That was annoying to me. Still, quite a fun game.

I do obey the stats when I play, but I still end up manipulating the game. Smart people playing dumb is typical way in RL to get what you want.

As S'mon mentions games where you get punished by not being smart/playing too smart suck. I don't so much like meta-study games either. Sure if I am really into it, but not if I coudn't care less.

I like rolling the die and stats are there for good reason. I always end up lol-state when reading/hearing people claim what their RL stats are. People either suck way too much (rare) or are uber-superheroes (common). Special > avarage.

Stats for characters are IMO good thing in RPG and so is rolling the die. Rolling the die saves us from lot of stupid arguments.