D&D 5E So 5 Intelligence Huh

[Ovinomancer]

Exactly. "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." -Hume

Hume was a blowhard.

 

[TwoSix]

Hume was a blowhard.

And yet, his opinions carry an awful lot of weight!

 

[Ovinomancer]

And yet, his opinions carry an awful lot of weight!

How can I tell? What's his XP level?

 

[TwoSix]

How can I tell? What's his XP level?

While he's not on this forum, he does have a glowing Wikipedia article.

 

[Ovinomancer]

While he's not on this forum, he does have a glowing Wikipedia article.

I've examined the luminescence, and the Hume article glows as brightly on my monitor as all the other Wikipedia articles.

 

[TwoSix]

I've examined the luminescence, and the Hume article glows as brightly on my monitor as all the other Wikipedia articles.

Maybe it's your browser settings. Or maybe I just have a weird Chrome extension.

 

[Guest 6801328]

if it important to the table that 5 INT matter to character decision making beyond the language rules and INT checks, then the GM should be filtering information provided to the different players on the basis of character INT, so that when the player takes on the situation of the PC, the fictional position is true to the PC's INT.

I want to highlight this quote, although I liked the entire post.

In all these debates about metagaming and player knowledge vs. character knowledge, my preferred answer is that it's the DM's job to make them the same thing, if that's the desired effect. So rather than "pretending to be ignorant/stupid/etc."...which I acknowledge is a particular variant of roleplaying but one that I find uninteresting...why not actually make the players ignorant by changing up the narration. Don't give them "trolls"...give them a new monster they haven't seen before that happens to regenerate. Don't make werewolves vulnerable to silver...make it something else.

I frequently go off on long essays about the meaning of "immersion", and for me it isn't pretending to be my character for the benefit of others, it's actually feeling like my character for my own enjoyment. So when my weapons don't effect the werewolf, and I'm at 3 HP, I'm actually thinking "HOLY F%&@*ING $#!T WE'RE GONNA TPK!!!". Not, "Hmmm...I wonder if I've played dumb long enough and I can use my silver weapon now...."

Here's an example I've used elsewhere:

Let's say a character gets amnesia. One way of handling it would be for the DM to say, "Hey, you have Amnesia, start roleplaying that." If that's done well I think some people here would call that "good roleplaying" but of course nobody as the table is actually fooled by anything or experiencing any of the confusion and bewilderment of the affliction.

A slightly better way would be for the DM to pass a note to the player, saying the same thing. Now at least the other players at the table are going to get caught off-guard and wonder what's going on. Until they figure it out, of course.

But I think the coolest way to handle this would be for the DM to secretly tell the *other* players, and all agree to switch up a bunch of the details of the campaign, including names and backgrounds of all the heroes, but in slightly subtle ways that appear gradually. It's borderline cruel, but it could be a great experience: the afflicted "player" could be genuinely bewildered and off-balance, and wondering WTF is going on...giving him some of the same experience that his character would be having.

So, getting back to the 5 INT question and the letter puzzle, if the DM wants the 5 INT player to feel "immersed" he can create hand-outs of the puzzle, and simply hand a ridiculously hard (or impossible?) version to the player with 5 INT. And maybe an easy one to the player with a high INT.

If that's too much work, simply describe the puzzle in the abstract, and explain that it can ONLY be solved by making a successful INT roll. (Noting that, unless the DC is 18+, it's entirely possible that the 5 INT character will solve it...)

 

[BoldItalic]

You're correct, I misread you.

That's a relief.

I am to understand, then, that you believe that Sherlock Holmes is not a genius, and does not have above average intelligence, correct?

Nope. Just because I believe you when you say X, doesn't mean I don't agree with you. Given (B believes (A believes P)) you can't infer anything about whether B believes P or not.

As it happens, I do believe that Sherlock Holmes was a genius. Indeed, I used him informally as an example of a genius when I introduced him to this thread in post #137.

So now we have:

(1) Ovimancer believes (Sherlock Holmes was a genius)
(2) BoldItalic believes (Sherlock Holmes was a genius)
This is great. At least we agree about something.

If this is so, I cannot refute this, and admit that you have adequately and logically proven that Sherlock Holmes has a 5 INT, and it is therefore NOT objectively bad to role play Sherlock Holmes with a 5 INT.

Alas, if only it were that simple. I would be delighted if you would accept that, but not if you arrive there by that reasoning.

You see, our disagreement is not about whether or not Sherlock Holmes was a genius - we have already agreed that he was - but about whether being a genius, in the Sherlock Holmes sense, is incompatible with having an Int of 5. You assert your belief that it is incompatible on general grounds but I don't share that belief. I have provided an argument to show that it is not incompatible but you don't believe that my argument is valid. And there we stand.

After many posts, you have failed to convince me of the correctness of your (strongly held) belief and I have failed to convince you of its incorrectness.

All that can be inferred is that we have different opinions.

But then, we knew that already.

 

[Guest 6801328]

BoldItalic is making an important point: however obvious it may seem that Sherlock Holmes, or a Sherlock Holmes character in D&D terms, has a high "Int" score, there is nothing in the game that makes that definitely true.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's a relief.



Nope. Just because I believe you when you say X, doesn't mean I don't agree with you. Given (B believes (A believes P)) you can't infer anything about whether B believes P or not.

As it happens, I do believe that Sherlock Holmes was a genius. Indeed, I used him informally as an example of a genius when I introduced him to this thread in post #137.

So now we have:

(1) Ovimancer believes (Sherlock Holmes was a genius)
(2) BoldItalic believes (Sherlock Holmes was a genius)
This is great. At least we agree about something.


Alas, if only it were that simple. I would be delighted if you would accept that, but not if you arrive there by that reasoning.

You see, our disagreement is not about whether or not Sherlock Holmes was a genius - we have already agreed that he was - but about whether being a genius, in the Sherlock Holmes sense, is incompatible with having an Int of 5. You assert your belief that it is incompatible on general grounds but I don't share that belief. I have provided an argument to show that it is not incompatible but you don't believe that my argument is valid. And there we stand.

After many posts, you have failed to convince me of the correctness of your (strongly held) belief and I have failed to convince you of its incorrectness.

All that can be inferred is that we have different opinions.

But then, we knew that already.

I have to say I'm not disappointed by your gymnastics. You choose to present my misreading as if it was material to the argument in question, and so dismissed that argument. Turns out, when pressed directly, you do exactly as I suggested in my misreading -- you believe that Sherlock is a genius. So, in effect, the post that spawned this misreading sidestep is merely inappropriately timed -- had it been posted now, it's entirely correct. You have flip-flopped about the nature of Sherlock's intelligence. You have chosen to willfully ignore that genius is defined as having above average intelligence while a 5 INT is defined as below average. You've made a clearly inconsistent argument, accused me of fallacies incorrectly, engaged in deliberate obfuscation regarding your opinion of Sherlock's genius status, and ended by asserting that this whole matter is merely a difference of opinion (in which you state mine is the incorrect one).

Yes, sir, I will agree our opinions differ. One is an attempt at honest discourse and the other is yours.