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

[AaronOfBarbaria]

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 neither have a set of breakpoints, nor do I make any kind of judgement calls about what a player is or isn't allowed to have their character attempt to do besides this one:

If there is no possible way - can't be guessed, couldn't have been heard of or read somewhere, couldn't have been surmised from hints found by the character up to this point - that a character could come to the conclusion of trying that action, then it is cheating for the player to do that thing.

It is extremely rare that such a thing ever happens, as there really isn't much that a player might dream up doing that their character actually needs to know some specific thing in order to have dreamed up.

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 find that to be the case, but then, as I said I am very much pro-"explain how your character thought that up" than pro-"character stats set limitations beyond the modifiers defined in the game."

I like to do a thing I call the "new player test" - each thing that a DM (me or otherwise) thinks might be a problem, such as a character blurting out a thought that came to the mind of the player or deciding to shove an enemy into a nearby fire rather than attack with a weapon, I ask "Would there be an issue if the player doing this thing was known to have no clue at all about the game rules in play (i.e. that using fire is a particularly good strategy against the specific enemy faced) or whether they are right or not (i.e. they are genuinely guessing "star" is the answer to the puzzle)?" And if the answer is "No, there would be no issue if a new player did that." then the answer must be that there is no issue if any player does that, or a double-standard (and a form of thought-policiing and forced meta-gaming in the name of 'avoiding meta-gaming') is in place.

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.

Beyond helping the player build their character so that it is suitable for the campaign it is to be played in, I don't concern myself with remembering or re-checking whatever details might be on a character sheet. A character's Intelligence score is not one of the things that I keep in my memory, where their race, gender, and other details that are immediately apparent to the NPCs that I am portraying are. Of course, as I've noted, I don't think I actually have any reason to care what the score specifically is when a player speaks in character - they are either saying something that is fine for them to say because it would be fine for any player to have a character say, or they are saying something that is entirely impossible for any character to ever say, and that is what triggers the response of "Woah, wait a sec, that can't be said."

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.

I have to disagree.

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.

This is the key to what my questions were testing: whether the DMs that answered think details which I do not consider to have any impact on what a character is capable of saying - because the game rules don't in any way say that they do have that impact - are required in order to let a character speak a guess.

 

[Guest 6801328]

In my view, whether or not the character is or acts like an imbecile is something you put in for the character's personality trait or flaw. If you play to that, you earn Inspiration. This is a built-in incentive for encouraging players to play as you would like them to. It has the added benefit of being unambiguous whereas "Int 5" doesn't tell us much at all. Each person reads into it in their own way.

This is the gist of it.

To anybody who thinks the player with the Int 5 shouldn't be able to propose "S" in the example we've been using. How about Int 6? Int 7? Int 8?

Where's the cut-off?

It's exceedingly unlikely that those who believe there *is* a cut-off share the same answer. And the same is true for any other example: the dividing line (assuming you believe there is one) is arbitrary and subjective. And even if you could pick an objective cut-off, it would still be an average, so in some cases even those below the cut-off would stumble upon the answer.

So how do you adjudicate cases fairly? How do you decide just how dumb Int 5 is?

I think Iserith's answer, and mine, is that you can't, so don't try. Let the dice fall where they may, and reward Inspiration (and general table approval) for good roleplaying. And that good roleplaying may very well be, "Yeah, my character is clueless and illogical in so many ways, but he has a strange gift for abstract logic puzzles."

 

[iserith]

[MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]: sorry I didn't give you more feedback. Overall I really love those both of those mini-modules. Do you have more?

I must have not read the first one carefully enough because it felt like an example of I'm-not-playing-D&D-I'm-solving-a-brain-teaser-from-the-puzzle-page-of-the-Times. And maybe that's a Pavlovian* reaction to too many of those puzzles over the years.

Again, though, I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority on this one.

*I'm just begging for a pedantic correction on my undoubtedly incorrect invocation of Pavlov, aren't I?

Thanks for the kind words. I have a number of them posted. Check them out.

Don't get me wrong - there is definitely a difference in presentation between the exploration challenges in Snow Job and Vampenstein. I'm just trying to see what makes it off-putting specifically. I get the instinctive negative reaction to puzzles. I've been in plenty of games where this was badly presented and handled by the DM (or badly designed in the module). How I design them is mostly in response to the ways I've seen them botched in the past.

 

[Lanliss]

It interferes in the overlooked step of what to turn the dial to. I was pretty clear in that post that this is where I saw a problem, spent two long paragraphs in the text you quoted going discussing it. Did you stop reading after the first paragraph?

I believe the exact question Iserith is asking goes something along the lines of "Assume it is just a dial, with no significance and no markings. Can the stupid PC turn this dial in a counter clockwise direction? If so, why can't this stupid PC turn the marked dial in a counter clockwise direction, assuming everything else about the dials is the same(no magic or mechanism that locks the dial in place)?"

Correct me if I am wrong Iserith.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The rule is very simple and applies to all parties involved in the interaction: If you try to harm or hinder another player character, the target of the harm or hindrance decides the outcome. It does NOT prevent players from making action declarations. It's exactly the same as any other action declaration with the exception of who narrates the outcome. If the players are acting in good faith, then the conflict will unfold in the manner the players mutually desire. In my experience, intra-party conflict is pretty rare, but there are additional contributing factors to this in my view: (1) My campaign does not lack for conflict outside the bounds of the party - there are plenty of monsters and NPCs to beat up and rob, so turning on other PCs seems pointless; (2) We establish relationships between the characters on par with Dungeon World's bonds prior to play (even in one-shots); (3) I foster an atmosphere where players add onto ideas they hear to make them better rather than shoot them down outright.

If it's okay to say that you're not actually interfering with the action declaration by providing a clear path for which such declarations can be arbitrarily denied by a biased party, then it seems to be that it's equally fine to ask for an INT check to see if a player is smart enough to turn a dial to the correct answer, because I'm not saying they can't declare that, I'm saying the outcome is in doubt, and I'm asking for a check.

Same thing, we're both determining an alternate method for adjudicating an allowed character declaration in a situation in which we wish to encourage a certain kind of play and discourage another kind of play. Although, I'm certain you don't see it as an agreement.

It's not clear to me what context is missing for you to answer concretely. An Int-5 character wants to turn a dial on a door to the "S" position. As for the "missing step," why should there be a test to see if the character can have this desire in the first place? If a player said something like, "I try to deduce whether 'S' is the right answer before turning the dial..." then what we have, potentially, is a player trying to verify his or her assumptions prior to taking action. If 'S' is wrong, then there might be consequences, after all, and this is an example of smart play that might very well call for an ability check. The player choosing to just turn the dial to "S" without verifying his or her assumption is taking a chance (albeit probably not a big one in this particular example as the puzzle is pretty easy).

So we're in agreement that this is a step there where the play thinks of the answer, yes? You explicitly state that if the player states that question aloud, it's able to be adjudicated, but if they don't speak the question, no adjudication can take place, even if it's obvious that such a question occurred and was left unspoken, yes? If both are yes, then what's the real issue of me recognizing that the middle step, spoken or unspoken, is actually in doubt and asking for a check to resolve the uncertainty? Is it really only that the character didn't speak it aloud?

 

[BookBarbarian]

I believe the exact question Iserith is asking goes something along the lines of "Assume it is just a dial, with no significance and no markings. Can the stupid PC turn this dial in a counter clockwise direction? If so, why can't this stupid PC turn the marked dial in a counter clockwise direction, assuming everything else about the dials is the same(no magic or mechanism that locks the dial in place)?"

Correct me if I am wrong Iserith.

But what if the character is Zoolander... and can only turn left. I'll see myself out.

 

[Ovinomancer]

In my view, whether or not the character is or acts like an imbecile is something you put in for the character's personality trait or flaw. If you play to that, you earn Inspiration. This is a built-in incentive for encouraging players to play as you would like them to. It has the added benefit of being unambiguous whereas "Int 5" doesn't tell us much at all. Each person reads into it in their own way.

I agree it doesn't tell us much. But it does tell us that the character is not as capable in the things that the PHB lists under Intelligence as someone with a higher score. It tells us that a 'normal' person has a score of 10, so that you should be less capable than a 'normal' person. So it's not meaningless, it has some useful information even, as you note, it lack a great deal of information. "Doesn't tell us much" is not the same as doesn't tell us anything.

But, overall, I find that you're willing to remove all agency from the players for their choices during character creation troubling. You've handwaved those away as utterly irrelevant to the play of the characters and only selected the four boxed of ideal, trait, bond, and flaw to be worth respecting, and then with one of the weaker aspects of 5e's design (total judgement on my part, I find inspiration to be awful, not in concept, I like bennie points, just in a boring, lackluster implementation). You say you respect player agency, but only in some contexts. I say I respect player agency even for character creation and you think that's a horrible idea. Clearly, we're not going to meet on this one.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I neither have a set of breakpoints, nor do I make any kind of judgement calls about what a player is or isn't allowed to have their character attempt to do besides this one:

If there is no possible way - can't be guessed, couldn't have been heard of or read somewhere, couldn't have been surmised from hints found by the character up to this point - that a character could come to the conclusion of trying that action, then it is cheating for the player to do that thing.

It is extremely rare that such a thing ever happens, as there really isn't much that a player might dream up doing that their character actually needs to know some specific thing in order to have dreamed up.

I don't find that to be the case, but then, as I said I am very much pro-"explain how your character thought that up" than pro-"character stats set limitations beyond the modifiers defined in the game."

I like to do a thing I call the "new player test" - each thing that a DM (me or otherwise) thinks might be a problem, such as a character blurting out a thought that came to the mind of the player or deciding to shove an enemy into a nearby fire rather than attack with a weapon, I ask "Would there be an issue if the player doing this thing was known to have no clue at all about the game rules in play (i.e. that using fire is a particularly good strategy against the specific enemy faced) or whether they are right or not (i.e. they are genuinely guessing "star" is the answer to the puzzle)?" And if the answer is "No, there would be no issue if a new player did that." then the answer must be that there is no issue if any player does that, or a double-standard (and a form of thought-policiing and forced meta-gaming in the name of 'avoiding meta-gaming') is in place.

Beyond helping the player build their character so that it is suitable for the campaign it is to be played in, I don't concern myself with remembering or re-checking whatever details might be on a character sheet. A character's Intelligence score is not one of the things that I keep in my memory, where their race, gender, and other details that are immediately apparent to the NPCs that I am portraying are. Of course, as I've noted, I don't think I actually have any reason to care what the score specifically is when a player speaks in character - they are either saying something that is fine for them to say because it would be fine for any player to have a character say, or they are saying something that is entirely impossible for any character to ever say, and that is what triggers the response of "Woah, wait a sec, that can't be said."

I have to disagree.
This is the key to what my questions were testing: whether the DMs that answered think details which I do not consider to have any impact on what a character is capable of saying - because the game rules don't in any way say that they do have that impact - are required in order to let a character speak a guess.

I don't see any further questions here; just want to make sure you're not expecting any specific reply in all of this.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I don't see any further questions here; just want to make sure you're not expecting any specific reply in all of this.

Nope, you answered my questions, and I have commented with my thoughts on your answers. If you don't have some replying comment you wish to make regarding my comments, then we have arrived at an understand of each others' positions and how our own positions differ (theoretically at least).

 

[Ovinomancer]

I believe the exact question Iserith is asking goes something along the lines of "Assume it is just a dial, with no significance and no markings. Can the stupid PC turn this dial in a counter clockwise direction? If so, why can't this stupid PC turn the marked dial in a counter clockwise direction, assuming everything else about the dials is the same(no magic or mechanism that locks the dial in place)?"

Correct me if I am wrong Iserith.

The difference is 'can a PC physically turn the dial to a random location?' vs. "can the PC figure out which spot on the dial will solve the puzzle?" The answer to the first question is, "clearly, in this case, yes." The answer to the second is, "maybe, needs a roll." This isn't a case of 'turn a dial randomly' being the same as 'turn the dial to a specific point." The question has never been if the PC is physically capable, the question, for me, was is the PC mentally capable of identifying the answer. Of course, if he can, there's no problem turning the dial, but the step of determining the answer is in doubt, and it's not incorrect to question the method of arriving at it and/or calling for a roll to see if it's correct.

Now, to say this again, the vast majority of the time I wouldn't blink at this and just let it go. My second possibility would be to look askance and have a word with the player after the game about the meaning of his choices and my expectations in game about honoring those choices. The third option would be to ask for the INT check to see if the declared answer is correct. This would be rarely invoked, and only in a case where I had done the second at least once previously with that player and in the face of a continued behavior to play around the PC's chosen limitations. I certainly wouldn't ask for the check all the time.

Now, I don't usually have this problem at all, because my current players and the groups I've played with before wouldn't normally act in the way Iserth presented. Further, I avoid puzzles that have answered so easily guessed out of character, so this also isn't something that I'd actually deal with. So my answers are hypothetical within the narrow corner case identified by Iserth, and are as complete as I can make them, and presented honestly to the best of my ability. If anyone thinks that I'm intentionally evading the answer, they're wrong, but I would be very curious to hear from them why they think I would evade and what I would gain from doing so.