D&D 5E (2014) So 5 Intelligence Huh

[pemerton]

Hit me, once, for muttering, "[expletive], beholders," before it was obvious because I recognized the description of the spell-jamming vessel in the encounter.

If you don't want your experienced players to recognize something (via metagame knowledge), describe it differently. Don't use standard descriptions from published sources. Maybe toss in a few modifications to the mechanics. That way, the players will be as puzzled as you want their characters to be.

Typically, in these situations I want the players to know (whether or not their characters do). For instance, what's the point of putting in a space ship that foreshadows beholders if the players don't pick up on the foreshadowing?

 

[Hriston]

None of that is true in D&D. Int x 10 = IQ is the only math there is for determining that score. So in D&D, the math for a 180 IQ would be...



Full stop. That's it. That's the math for a 180 IQ in D&D



This is irrelevant and based on how Earth does IQ.

So you're redefining IQ as something other than what it actually is. Perhaps you should consider using a different term for what you mean, since IQ is already taken.

 

[Hriston]

You missed my point. Yes, IQ is forced into a normal distribution. However, the data IQ models isn't normally distributed -- it cannot be because the difference between numbers in the data do not have an equal distance between them. The reason it's forced into a false normal distribution is so that normal statistical processes can be run on the numbers, but these stats are even more likely to be abused than normal stats (which have a high abuse rate, see p-hacking) because the use of stats covers up the ordinal nature of the data.

Here, an example that I hope will be illuminating. Take contestants in a foot race. You do not time the runners time, but just mark down the order in which they finish the race. So you have 1st, 2nd, 3rd, ..., nth contestants. You run this race a number of times and record the same types of data while also noting how many times each contestant scores in each position. You review your data, and notice that, over time, only a handful routinely place in the top half, and similarly only a smallish group routinely place in the last places. In the middle, there's a bunch of moving around, with people generally staying withing a few places of where they usually finish. You decide you want to use this data to model the general population in terms of speed, and so force your data into a normal distribution that says that only a small number of people will be 1st placers, a few more 2nd placers, and so on all the way through the bell curve. Viola! You now have your SQ, or speed quotient! It's normally distributed, and you can do math on it.

But... you only recorded their place finishes. You have no real data about how much time separates 1st and 2nd place finishers vs m and nth place finishers. The data is ordinal, and so doesn't have a known separation between data points. If you instead used time data in your model, you'd find that your previously normal distribution will now skew heavily into a new shape, because the separation between data points will shift.

That was my point. You can stand there and say that IQ has a normal distribution by definition all you'd like, but you're just declaring an arbitrary choice to be okay because it was arbitrarily made. Stats done on ordinal data sets are only roughly useful to compare within the set. It's useless outside the set. "Normal distribution" of an ordinal data set is a fiction that's narrowly useful, and dangerous because people tend to attach meaning to such terms that those terms do not deserve. IQ being a forced normal distribution does not make it okay to compare to other normal distributions -- there's nothing magical about the normal model of data other than it makes people think that there's something useful there. The use is in the data. Stats can help find that use, but never, ever, confuse stats for data or assume that because stats was used the results are useful. In this case, ie comparing IQ to anything other than itself, it's not useful and, in fact, misleading. If you think you can compare IQ distribution to 3d6 distribution because normal distribution, the math has fooled you into believing in a lie.

That's not my point. My point is in reference to [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s assertion that IQ=Int X 10. My point is this cannot be true assuming a 3d6 distribution of ability scores. If we know that a certain IQ occurs with a certain probability because it is normally distributed, then it cannot correlate to an Intelligence score that occurs with a much higher probability. Make sense?

 

[pemerton]

So you're redefining IQ as something other than what it actually is. Perhaps you should consider using a different term for what you mean, since IQ is already taken.

I think that what [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] means is this:

IQ score is taken to be a marker of some property of a person - let's call that property intelligence. Having IQ 180, among real-life human beings on earth, means you're in the top X% (where X is less than 0.00000029). That X % of people have a certain degree of intelligence - let's call that amount of intelligence I.

Now, in the world of D&D, there are also people who have I amount of intelligence. But the number of such people is far greater than in the real world. Rather than being X%, it is nearly 0.5% (1 in 216).​

In other words, the conjecture is that humans of high intelligence tend to be more common in the world of D&D than they are in the real world.

Personally I think this conjecture is positing that the stat generation system has a degree of world-building robustness that I don't think was ever intended. In the case of AD&D, there is the additional complexity that for many NPCs stats are meant to be rolled using averaging dice (1 = 3, 6 = 4) which means that the max INT is 15, and that scores above 12 are less common than they would be on a 3d6 roll. (25 in 216 will be 13, 14 or 15 - that's a little more than 1 in 9, which actually isn't too out of whack with these figures, if we allow 121 to map to 13 rather than 12.)

 

[Maxperson]

Will you go on record to state that this is your preference and perhaps that of your table and not a distinction the rules make?

Sure, but it's also the norm. I've met virtually nobody in the last 30+ years of gaming that wouldn't play a stupid PC as stupid and make stupid decisions for that character. If your table is abnormal and is okay with a stupid PC being roleplayed as average or smart, then have at it.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I was referring to the rules of D&D, not the table rule of how we handle PCs harming or hindering each other. The rules of D&D are adjudicated impartially, when the DM decides they come into play.

Here's my takeaway from this. You're just fine in limiting player action declarations for things you don't like. In this case, you don't like inter-player conflict, so you've instituted a table rule that shorts out the normal game rules and declares that narrative power moves from the DM to one of the players involved (I'm unclear as to how you determine the "defending" player, is it just a matter of who declares first?). You do this because you wish to restrict a type of interaction that you find doesn't suit the type of game you wish to run. I hope I have that largely correct?

Yet, you're arguing that others should not do a similar thing in cases where you don't think it's appropriate. The difference isn't that we disagree that you can't limit character action declarations or resolutions according to the personal tastes of the DM, but that you don't think doing so with stats is appropriate. I'm sure there's an argument to be made that a class of action declarations that relates to who it's targeted at is someone significantly different from a class of action declarations based on a stat, but that's special pleading.

That I find a particular play experience awful doesn't mean anything other than I find it awful. For me. It's not a claim that it is objectively awful.

I will endeavor to recall this. I'm sure you extend the same courtesy to people that tell you that your choices in running are awful?

I've seen and experienced plenty of conflicts that were not well-received. Plenty of horror stories about this sort of thing on the forums throughout the years as well.

Sure, which is probably why you've decided to just close off the ability of your players to engage in that type of action.

Whoa, deja vu. I'm almost positive I've said almost that exact thing to you before. Have I?

Anyway. I've also seen horror stories. That comes from no controls or a player that's not working out well with the group dynamic. However, it's also perfectly good to set expectations at the beginning of play and enforce them that can ensure that the abuses and horror stories are unlikely to occur (anything involving people is uncertain) but still allows for good inter-player conflict. An example: in my current campaign, the requirements for PCs are, "play someone who will care about doing heroic deed," and "play a character that will work well in a group." As we're all friends, this is easy, but I made sure to say it anyway to set the tone of the campaign. I've had to once work with a character concept that was going to have trouble with those two requirements, and did so by asking the player how his character was going to meet those requirements. A few changes later, and it was good, so it does work.

In play, a few conflicts have arisen. The biggest one, and one that I'm enjoying the most, deals with the main plot. A short summation is that the Dwarves long ago had a massive empire, but then blew up the world. How, or with what, is not known today. It took many hundreds of years for civilization to begin to recover and much knowledge was lost. Okay, a tad trite, but there's a twist. The players uncovered a plot by a group of well funded and powerful cultists to acquire the knowledge the dwarves used to effect the cataclysm. The players have been racing to gather the knowledge first and keep it from the cultists. However, in their journeys, they've also begun to run across a strange kind of crystalline growth that warps the surroundings into nightmare landscapes and horrid aberrations. They figured out that the two things may be related, and sought more information. They uncovered that this rot had occurred before, in the time of the Dwarven Empire, and had grown out of control of even the power of that era. The 'cataclysm' was an attempt by Dwarves to use an even more ancient power to fight the rot; a weapon tied to the forces of creation. They can't tell if it worked properly or if the dwarves did something wrong and also caused the cataclysm, but either way, it seemed to stop the rot.

So, the conflict? Well, the party had loosely organized into three camps. Those that think that it may be necessary to 'push the button' and use the weapon again to stop the rot, and so wish to acquire the weapon for that purpose. Those that think that the weapon is clearly flawed, and that it should be acquired to prevent it's use at all costs while another solution to the rot is found. And a third, neutral faction that hasn't decided. Both the 'push the button' and the 'no nukes' camps are quietly making contingency plans to ensure that they can 'do the right thing' if push comes to shove, but are still working with the other group and attempting to use argument to convince the other side and/or more of the unaligned group to join their side.

If push does come to shove, and they fall into fighting each other over what's the 'right' way to save the world, I wouldn't step in to prevent them from playing the characters they want. My players understand the difference between conflict between characters and conflict between players, and, in this case, the conflict is clearly between the characters. I wouldn't even begin to know who to select as the 'defending player' allowed to dictate the outcome to the other players in this case.

At the time, I understood you to say that in order to solve the "problem" of players acting smarter than you believe their character's Intelligence would allow (players you didn't know well because the one you do wouldn't do that, natch), you would call for an ability check. I took that to mean that playing at a table with such players would mean you would use that solution unilaterally going forward. If so, I think that solution produces other problems. If that's not a solution you would apply unilaterally, then disregard.

So disregarded.

I don't think you have answered the question as to what fictional circumstance is making turning the dial to "S" uncertain enough to warrant an ability check.

You're right, in that you're fishing for a hard, concrete answer when my answer all along has been, 'it's like porn, I know it when I see it.' The number of considerations that would go into that decision are myriad and defy easy quantification. I'm sure you don't run your game with a concrete list of 'when I see 'X' I will then do 'Y'' statements, so why are you requiring me to provide you with such a declaration, especially when I've clearly conceded that it's a matter of judgement in specific cases?

 

[Maxperson]

So if you play a Wizard with 20 intelligence and you make some bad choices, are you roleplaying very badly?

Ahh, Strawman by implication. You just implied that I said that stupid PCs can only make stupid choices with that answer, and then answered that fabrication. I didn't. It's not bad roleplaying for a int 20 wizard to make SOME bad choices. Nor is it bad roleplaying for a stupid PC to make SOME good choices.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Which cannot be said in this case on account of the fact that I was upfront and honest about what information I was withholding, and was withholding that information specifically because it was necessary to withhold in order to ask the questions that I asked.

Then it was my bad for assuming that. Given many such postulations wherein the example behavior was the solution to the puzzle, I, understandably, confused your intent.

...so if the character has been blurting things out a lot, or if the player said "the character will very rarely, maybe only once in the entire campaign, blurt out a thought" it would be okay. That makes sense.
Sure... but where's the middle ground between those two extremes? What about this player that is not established as having a habit of blurting out the right answer, has not established that his character does or does blurt things out or with what frequency, and might not have any idea whether the answer being blurted this time is actually correct or not?

Do you have a set of breakpoints in a list of when something moves from this to that next to you when you run, or do you make judgement calls based on the wealth of additional information in the situation that isn't present in your thumbnail sketch? I've already been in trouble for assuming additional information (which I clearly stated) because it wasn't your additional information, so my answer to your question of 'when does it cross the line' is that you haven't provided enough information for me to tell you. It's highly dependent on a number of factors that you haven't presented.

I don't think you did. You haven't said whether you would ask this player what their Int score and riddling skill are because of their action. Nor whether you limit the blurting specifically because of those score, though you have implied you would - I just want to be sure I'm not misunderstanding you. You also haven't said whether a player portraying their character this way is "fine" or not.

I rather assumed that such knowledge would be available to the DM, not a surprise to them, so I didn't even consider that something that needed answering. If you insist, yes, if I did not know what the characters in my game where capable of, I would have to ask so that I did know. As for the portrayal being fine or not, I don't know -- you don't provide an example of a portrayal of a character, you provided a thumbnail sketch of events at the table with no information on how anyone in the sketch 'portrayed' their character. It may be fine, it may not, there's not enough information in your sketch for me to hazard a guess without assuming things you didn't provide.

 

[Maxperson]

Probably the biggest factor is that I have such a hard time believing (as I mentioned in a previous thread) that anybody would build this kind of puzzle into their lair/tomb/defenses/whatever. Can you imagine using a safe in your office that has a puzzle to solve, instead of a secret combination? So it feels to me like "something that is inserted into the narrative to test the meta-abilities of the players behind the marionettes".

It depends on the purpose of the lair or tomb. If you are the sort of person who wants to take it with you when you die and let nobody have it, then you don't use that sort of defense. If you are the sort who understands that you can't take it with you, but don't want to just give it away, it's very likely that you would use that sort of puzzle to make sure that only the worthy can reach the items.

 

[Maxperson]

That's not my point. My point is in reference to [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s assertion that IQ=Int X 10. My point is this cannot be true assuming a 3d6 distribution of ability scores. If we know that a certain IQ occurs with a certain probability because it is normally distributed, then it cannot correlate to an Intelligence score that occurs with a much higher probability. Make sense?

Earth math has nothing to do with it. It's a GAME, and in a game things can be different. This isn't the first time D&D has altered a definition.