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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6641667" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Thank you. You have said in two sentences what I tried to say in several poly-paragraph posts.Well, it's impossible for us to judge exactly how much different the D&amp;D-playing population is from the overall one, since we know nothing about its relative distribution of intelligences, but we can get that overall population estimate. For a group of exactly five people, the expected number of people with &quot;one in 216&quot; intelligence is 0.023, meaning about 2% of groups of that size have such a person in them (which makes sense, because 100 five-person groups is 500 people, which is more than double 216). If we set our sights just a wee bit lower at 16-or-better, and use 4d6 drop lowest instead of straight 3d6, the odds improve to approximately 0.65 people per group on average.Having played several sessions of B/X now, I can agree with this. I &quot;improvised&quot; a bit myself, which is to say I floated trial balloons, gauged my DM's response, pressed for better benefit, hedged, and otherwise played a game entirely unrelated to the tomb-raiding, bandit-slaying, mummy-angering one occupying our head-space. I, and the others, played a secondary but concurrent game of investigating, managing, and massaging the DM's perspective of what was going on. I tended to do less of it than my fellow-players, partially because they were all old friends whereas I was a newcomer, partially because *that* kind of improv often leaves a bad taste in my mouth (since, as noted, I'm not really &quot;playing D&amp;D&quot; anymore so much as &quot;playing the DM, who happens to be the *arbitrator* of the D&amp;D.&quot;)And this is a big part of why heroes-in-fiction are usually not very good fits for heroes-in-games, except as loose conceptual archetypes to emulate (on the order of &quot;employs martial prowess&quot; or &quot;casts spells through consummate erudition&quot;). Heroes-in-fiction have all sorts of abilities and associations that either don't, won't, or can't apply to heroes-in-games.Yeah...this has definitely been an issue. I do think 4e did a decent job of highlighting that &quot;person who makes decisions for the party,&quot; &quot;person who interacts with NPCs,&quot; and &quot;person who coordinates battle&quot; do not need to be the same person, even though all of them can be called &quot;the party leader.&quot;Unfortunately, due to the carte blanche nature of D&amp;D magic, this is almost certainly unavoidable. For some, it's even become the &quot;cononut shell sound&quot; of TTRPGs: *not* having magic that can do everything and martials that fall through the cracks (an apt phrase) is grounds for mutiny. Only indie games can violate this sacred covenant and not get royally wrecked, it seems, and it leaves me very, very sad.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 6641667, member: 6790260"] Thank you. You have said in two sentences what I tried to say in several poly-paragraph posts. Well, it's impossible for us to judge exactly how much different the D&D-playing population is from the overall one, since we know nothing about its relative distribution of intelligences, but we [I]can[/I] get that overall population estimate. For a group of exactly five people, the expected number of people with "one in 216" intelligence is 0.023, meaning about 2% of groups of that size have such a person in them (which makes sense, because 100 five-person groups is 500 people, which is more than double 216). If we set our sights just a wee bit lower at 16-or-better, and use 4d6 drop lowest instead of straight 3d6, the odds improve to approximately 0.65 people per group on average. Having played several sessions of B/X now, I can agree with this. I "improvised" a bit myself, which is to say I floated trial balloons, gauged my DM's response, pressed for better benefit, hedged, and otherwise played a game entirely unrelated to the tomb-raiding, bandit-slaying, mummy-angering one occupying our head-space. I, and the others, played a secondary but concurrent game of investigating, managing, and massaging the DM's perspective of what was going on. I tended to do less of it than my fellow-players, partially because they were all old friends whereas I was a newcomer, partially because *that* kind of improv often leaves a bad taste in my mouth (since, as noted, I'm not really "playing D&D" anymore so much as "playing the DM, who happens to be the *arbitrator* of the D&D.") And this is a big part of why heroes-in-fiction are usually not very good fits for heroes-in-games, except as loose conceptual archetypes to emulate (on the order of "employs martial prowess" or "casts spells through consummate erudition"). Heroes-in-fiction have all sorts of abilities and associations that either don't, won't, or can't apply to heroes-in-games. Yeah...this has definitely been an issue. I do think 4e did a decent job of highlighting that "person who makes decisions for the party," "person who interacts with NPCs," and "person who coordinates battle" do not need to be the same person, even though all of them can be called "the party leader." Unfortunately, due to the carte blanche nature of D&D magic, this is almost certainly unavoidable. For some, it's even become the "cononut shell sound" of TTRPGs: *not* having magic that can do everything and martials that fall through the cracks (an apt phrase) is grounds for mutiny. Only indie games can violate this sacred covenant and not get royally wrecked, it seems, and it leaves me very, very sad. [/QUOTE]

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