rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/76614/…

Here is a link to it.

... Interesting. Chat didn't expand my link...

Anyone can have a look and share an opinion, btw.

@Althis sometimes oneboxing messes up. BESW's found editing the post (even just submitting it and doing nothing) jogs it and makes it notice it has to onebox.

> What are the main game design arguments for not ditching Character Intelligence and using Player Intelligence during system design?

Your question's a little ambiguous: "[not ditching] Character Intelligence and using Player Intelligence" reads differently to "not [ditching Character Intelligence and using Player Intelligence]." and they're very different sentences.

This would be phrased better as:

> What are the main game design arguments for [doing this thing], instead of [doing this thing], during system design?

Fixed it.

Do you think the list is useful for the question?

I left it in because I thought it would clarify what I mean by using player intelligence, but I am not entirely sure it does.

Also I voted to close that question as Too Broad because you were asking this across the entire RPG design landscape. It's kind of a nonstarter for a few reasons. First, things like wisdom, lore, knowledge, and so on are also player skills. Even strength is a player skill: "if you can lift a 40kg weight you can lift the boulder out of the way." They're less relevant in games intent on modelling superhumans.

Second, each game that uses an Intelligence skill may have its own reasons, and those reasons may be different between each game.

Third, there are many many games which offer no opinion on a character's intelligence, beyond what the players choose. Dogs in the Vineyard, Cthulhu Dark, Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, Fate, and so on have nothing built in to reflect "this is how smart your character is". You can leave it entirely unsaid.

In Roll for Shoes, your relative intelligence on different tasks is entirely up for discovery.

So the question comes back more to: "why would you have design features for character traits over player traits?", and the reasons are why we have character features to begin with that describe someone other than ourselves.

But still, the "why would you choose to use this tool instead of this tool, during system design" should have a finite set of clear considerations.

Just within games that have something they call "Intelligence," it may or may not map to the sorts of things you're talking about. You could usefully ask "Why does this game use PC Int instead of/in addition to player int?" about one game, or about a very narrow school of games (editions of D&D, or iterations of the d20 System), but not about all of them at once.

You're not just describing one tool.

The reasons can be many and varied depending on your game context. Chainmail: I dunno, let's dig up some author quotes. Mutants and Masterminds: you're playing superheroes and villains, isn't the point to be more than anything your player can be capable of? Fate: what's intelligence, why aren't you asking about lore, and will, and physique, and athletics, and other things?

@doppelgreener how would you suggest I change the question to focus more on the effects of such a design choice on the system then, not taking into consideration the setting?

Eg, when I mentioned Int as a targeting-and-damage stat in 4e, you dismissed it as similar to willpower. It's not, but if it were that'd be a good example of the tool not being what you're describing it as, and comes perilously close to No True Scotsman.

@Althis here's the thing: what system? You're asking for the reasons for using a particular character stat, when the very premise doesn't apply to many RPGs. You need to pick a system, and ask about why we have a particular feature of that system.

Hm...

Exactly what Intelligence represents is hotly debated within D&D 3.5 itself, irrelevant of any other system.

Asking "why do RPGs have an Intelligence score?" is a bit like asking: "Why do the tools in my box have metal prongy bits?" Uh - which tools are those exactly in your box? Some of the metal prongy bits are there for different reasons. Are we talking about a hammer, or a flathead screwdriver, or something else? Some tools don't even have prongs at all.

@BESW, as I said before, I already got what I wanted out of this, but you said that you saw the nugget of a good question here. What would you suggest we change to make this a worthwhile question?

You're generalising a very disparate and only tenuously connected concept and treating it as a coherent, singular mechanic. This makes your question effectively not actually asking about anything.

@BESW Yes, this.

@Althis Honestly, I'm not sure what I saw was even there. I'm more confused the more you try to explain it.

There is an ongoing theory-and-practice discussion in RPGs about the contact zone between player and PC.

@BESW, you might be confused if you saw the latest edit because I intentionally changed the intent of the question so the answer could possibly more informative and direct.

Or at least tried to.

I have a topic, that is exactly what you mentioned there, the distance between player intelligence and character intelligence, why it exists and why would you choose to widen the gap.

You need specifics to dig into this idea.

Broadly the answer is "Because that's the kind of game it is."

How do I turn this topic into a specific that yields a good answer?

You also need to be aware that this statement is false:

> Games with character attributes like strength, agility, and the rest usually have Intelligence as one of those attributes. However, Intelligence is different to the other attributes in that it is an attribute of the player that could be directly used in the game.

Where "it" is any game which does the thing you describe, and "the kind of game" is whatever that game wants to be.

@doppelgreener, how come?

The player can also apply their Wisdom, their Spot, their Perception, their Knowledge. They can apply their Charisma - think of all the situations where diplomacy is resolved via roleplay, which also means Intimidate and Diplomacy are things we can represent with character skill. And why stop there? Why not measure a Jump or Climb check by getting a player to jump up high or leap far or climb a tree in the garden? Why not have them pass Strength tests by lifting or pushing an equivalent weight?

@BESW, in game design, no choice is made without consideration. If a conscious choice is made to widen or bridge that gap, there must be considerations in favor or against each approach.

I've played at tables where a PC's Charisma is secondary to the player's ability to convince the GM. Dread is explicitly a game where a player's Dexterity comes into play.

Why aren't you asking why we don't have more games that use Jenga instead of dice?

@Althis We've told you how to make it specific.

In Fate: Lore, Provoke, Notice, Deceive, Empathy, Physique, Rapport, are all trivially supplanted by player ability. If you have the right physical things available, so are Athletics and Physique. If you're super prepared, Fight and Shoot too.

@doppelgreener On the point about the physical skills, that is preposterous. On the point of the charisma skills, the main reason I can think for that is that it makes life harder for the GM, since he has to try to be impartial during those checks, and rolling a dice is useful for those.

Why not have players arm-wrestle the GM to resolve physical altercations?

I've got a half-made party game where success on an action is determined by remembering an increasingly long series of silly gestures.

@Althis Why's it preposterous? It requires extra equipment, but the thing is, it is something where we can use player ability instead of character ability. If we're measuring "can the player solve the puzzle?" we can also measure "can the player lift that weight?"

It's a lot easier to use intelligence in this context though. You don't need props to think. Maybe just paper and a pen.

Point is: saying that "Intelligence is different to the other attributes in that it is an attribute of the player that could be directly used in the game" is false, because lots of other character features can be attributes of the player that could be used directly in the game as well.

The reasons why certain games don't do that and actually produce character skills instead of player skills... differs depending on the game, as do the skills themselves.

You've got something in mind from your own experience or from hearing about the experience of others, but you don't want to say what it is. Instead you're making broad generalisations that other people aren't understanding because we don't know what you're thinking.

← 57 messages moved from RPG General Chat

Trying to think.

Despite how ridiculous what you are saying is, it makes sense.

Yeeah.

Trying to figure out how to change the question.

See, the stuff you're asking about player Int sounds just as ridiculous to other folks.

It is a little easier to bridge the gap, though.

It doesn't require physical exertion.

What reason do you have for feeling that Intelligence fits your model, while Charisma or Dexterity don't?

Intelligence is different from the others.

Dexterity is physical.

Right. It is a bit ridiculous to measure success on physical tasks by player execution of the same task - especially when you're in a game focused on superhumans that can run for hours on full-plate armor without stopping for a break, something nobody in real life can achieve on their best day. But wondering why we have physical character skills will get you reasons that are similar to why any character skills at all, including why we might portray Intelligence as one.

We've got examples of actual games where players are called on to supply those stats.

Dread uses a Jenga tower to resolve actions.

I've seen the Charisma thing been done.

And when I asked about Intelligence, I at first had no doubts about Charisma, because I've seen where the system fails if you do that.

I wanted to know specifically about intelligence.

Now I just want to make this question useful.

Just because some of the things a PC uses Int to do are things that players can do at the table doesn't imply any kind of redundancy.

The player can't use their own Int to do Arcana checks.

The reasons Charisma-as-player-stat fails at my table are the exact same reasons Int-as-player-stat fails at my table.

@doppelgreener They could if you used emergent systems to model magic.

Now you're talking about Ars Magica.

@Althis Which brings us back to: different games have different features for different reasons.

In D&D you can't use the player's Int to do Arcana checks.

@BESW One of the main reasons I think Player Charisma fails at the table is because the GM has to try harder to get into character and be impartial during those.

That at least, doesn't affect Intelligence.

Really?

That's not always the case at all.

In our games as GM I'm already in character and have no concern about being partial.

At least in my experience.

That was the biggest problem I got with it.

(Sorry for the incredulous 'really', that was unnecessary and a bit disrespectful.)

So, you're okay with asking players to study the history of an entire setting in order to know whatever single bit of info their PC would know from living in the world their entire life, but you don't want the GM to have to work harder to get into character?

@doppelgreener Not really.

@BESW, that was the best answer I got to my question.

I just wanted to have it clearly listed in a way that more people could read the same lessons I got out of it.

I don't know what you mean by that.

@Althis If the reason not to use Player Charisma is "the GM has to try harder", then the reason not to use Player Intelligence is the same: instead of saying "there's a puzzle, roll in to see if you solve it", the GM has to design or find an actual real puzzle and present it to the players, hopefully immersively, and make sure it's one they might actually plausibly be able to solve. (As oppposed to just knowing that "DC 15 has a 50% chance of success for the wizard.")

@BESW Someone answered the same thing about time commitment in my question. That was by far the best answer I got to my question.

Yes, that's one reason to avoid it.

It's not the only reason, but we could sit here literally all day going through why different systems have chosen one of dozens of other ways to handle the concept.

Most commonly, simply because it's a stat that allows PCs to do things players can't do.

@doppelgreener It is a bit different, though. The designing of puzzles is work that can be done beforehand and is impartial during gameplay. Whether or not the players figure out the puzzle has nothing to do with the GM, only the players skill.

@BESW And that was one of the reasons I listed in the original question.

@Althis That has no bearing on my experience whatsoever.

What I just wanted is a list of the most influential reasons in the answers.

@Althis Hey, you're giving "the GM has to work harder" and time commitment as the reasons not to use Player Charisma. Those same reasons apply to using Player Intelligence.

@BESW Haven't you ever been accused of being unfair in a game?

@Althis On occasion, yes. Usually based on things I'd prepared beforehand.

@doppelgreener A GM already pays more time than most players. At least that is the general case.

And the idea that a GM's puzzlework before a game starts has no impact on the players' ability to solve the puzzle in-game is laughable.

@BESW (Now that was a little disrespectful)

Hm...

Mmm. I found it a bit disrespectful to the time and effort I've put in over the years, customising puzzles to my players so they'd be challenging but not unsolvable, or would guide the players' thoughts in a particular direction.

Silly me, it was all the players' responsibility to get the desired experience out of the puzzle.

No?

@doppelgreener, can you show me games in which that is not the case?

Often it's simply "We've got an idea that fits our game better."

@BESW, and this one doesn't because of "this, this and that."

Of which those three are pretty likely to be among them.

@Althis This list you have provided is not the reasons why the games I have, have skills measuring player intelligence and knowledge.

And if you were to ask me why, I'd give you a different reason for each game why they have those skills.

Again, there is an ongoing theory-and-practice discussion in RPGs about the contact zone between player and PC. This isn't about how easy something is.

As someone writing a Fate modification, the list you have provided is also not the reason I've chosen the skills I've chosen for the game.

@doppelgreener That could be the list of why the game you have don't have player intelligence instead of attributes for measuring those, though.

It's fundamentally about the friction between player and PC, and how your suggestion blurs the distinction between the two in ways that most games have no interest in whatsoever.

@Althis Also you completely discarded the idea that "time" and "GM effort" have any relevance to intelligence, even things which objectively take time and effort (puzzle design and creation), while presenting those same arguments as reasons why Player Charisma is not usable in game, when I as a GM find handling those very easy and requiring no time or effort.

Ars Magica, a game entirely about players using an emergent magic system, has an Intelligence score for PCs.

So, I'm not feeling very cooperative with someone who goes "... yeah but you're already spending craploads of time, so spend more" which has nothing to do with the fact you supplied "more time" as a reason to avoid something.

So your notion that it gets in the way of an emergent magic system doesn't hold.

@doppelgreener That was me defending using player intelligence. But the matter here isn't the worthiness of the idea, despite how easy it becomes to me to advocate it one time or another. It is about listing why that idea is a bad idea.

Without a specific example to study, this is all hand-waving at nothing.

@BESW Correct

I understand your considerations.

Here's an idea, if you're not going to get into specific examples of games: instead of seeking reasons why not to do something, how about coming up with design challenges to which it would be the best solution?

@Althis You're seeking universal reasons for intelligence specifically, where intelligence is not universal, and nor are the reasons. There's some (some) universal reasons behind having character attributes at all. Those same reasons apply to all character attributes: it's so that you can play a character who isn't you at a basic level. If you want to be more specific with "reasons why this thing is here" we'll have to talk about specific systems and specific things in those systems.

I understand what you are saying but I disagree with your comment due to my belief that any mechanic has some universal effects to any system they are inserted on, just as they have many more effects particular to that system.

That given, it is probably a good idea to close the question.

I do not know how to make it a good question.

Then, the universal effect is simply this: Attribute scores distance player and character. Conflating one with the other changes the experience of play on a fundamental level, as seen in extreme examples like A Penny For My Thoughts.

You can start by instead of saying "why do RPGs have Intelligence?", asking us: "Why does D&D have intelligence?" "Why does Fate have Lore?" "Why does Cthulhu Dark have a Profession dice?" "Why does Roll for Shoes let you discover competency?"

These are actually answerable questions that aren't based on a false premise (that "RPGs have an Intelligence stat" is a valid generalisation people can respond to, and that the reasoning is necessarily the same between all of them)

@BESW I would accept that as an answer.

Were you to ask that question, I would answer it.

@doppelgreener It is not too hard to read it as "Why do RPGs that use Intelligence as a stat do what they do".

@Althis And trying to tackle that universally is Too Broad.

@Althis But that is not an answerable question.

@BESW Yes, this.

"What they do" is argleblargle.

@Althis nvoight gave that answer (admittedly very confrontationally), and you rejected it out of hand.

It's like asking "Why does a person with a car do what he does?"

@BESW You just answered it.

@Miniman He was very aggressive.

@Althis No, I didn't. I answered "What universal effect does replacing a PC's stat with a player's own ability have on gameplay?"

@BESW That is both a question I could make and a question that could be answered.

I would link that to the comment you made saying that wasn't an answerable question.

But I do not know how to.

@Althis So? Does that mean he was wrong, and BESW is right, despite saying almost exactly the same thing?

It is just up there.

@Miniman Doesn't mean he is wrong. Just means it is a lot harder to convince people when you put them on the defensive due to aggression.

@Althis If we're going to play that game, you put him on the defensive by asking a question in a way which made it sound like you think a common experience goal shared by a wide swathe of the RPG community is silly.

@Althis Well, yes. I was put off by his tone too, but I still took the time to think about what he was saying. That you accept the same answer when it's delivered in a different tone suggests that maybe you didn't.

I would also not consider @BESW a good answer. Despite being an answer a good answer would lead me to where I could read more on the subject, since it is so hard to quantify.

@Miniman You might be mislead by my acceptance of this one as well. Because I am honestly just tired of this by now.

@Althis As BESW and doppelgreener have been trying to convince you, it is hard to quantify because you insist on asking about some nebulous universal rather than a specific example.

Studying specific examples usually yields a more broad understanding. The inverse is rarely true.

@Miniman They've also mentioned that there is discussion out there about it.

A good question would link to that discussion.

@Althis Sorry, I've probably come across as very rude. I've been trying to get microsoft extensions to install properly and it's left me in a bad place.

@Miniman I do not think you came across as rude.

@Althis That's good to hear :)

@BESW Our entire body of knowledge comes from deriving knowledge from specific situations and formalizing them broadly so that they can be applied to different scenarios.

@Althis I have indicated there's reasons for RPGs to have mechanics at all. Skill/attribute/point systems (in their various forms) are one of those mechanics. Specific RPGs have specific mechanics for specific reasons - at least when they're well designed. Thus, also, choosing certain skills and not others also have their own reasons. (Some of the D&D-likes just have their stuff "because that's what everyone else does" without questioning it.)

One part of that creates knowledge.

The other informs.

The Stack, however, is a small and narrowly focused segment of that body of knowledge. It knows its strengths and its weaknesses.

Question specificity plays to the Stack's strengths.

I don't know of general literature to point you to. I don't even know if the Forge discussed this stuff, but it probably did.

@doppelgreener BESW said that it is a "hotly debated topic". Links to those discussions would be enough.

I'd be happy to go digging for some discussion material if there's a question I could usefully formulate an answer around.

Enlighten me instead of complain about my rethoric(sorry for sounding dramatic here)

@Althis We're not complaining about your rhetoric, you invited us to discuss why your question's closed and whether it's worth reopening, and we're telling you the problem with it.

But I've already given you most of the links for the resources I'd start with, and your questions thus far haven't shown any attempt to do any research yourself.

@doppelgreener That was not a complaint about you two specifically. It is just the broad behavior I see in this site.

It is not really made for enlightening people.

A Stack question is going to be poorly received if it starts by making inaccurate or overly broad statements which are clarified with a little bit of research.

I've made that argument before, and I will not do it again.

@Althis Then please remember you are speaking to us specifically here in this room, who are not complaining about your rhetoric (except when I am), not the whole site.

@BESW @BESW, I've read the blogs you sent me. But they were not in respect to this question. I think you are mistaken about that.

@doppelgreener I'm just frustrated.

I just wanted to leave something good for this community.

But I find it damn hard to work here.

The Stack is rather exacting, especially when dealing with topics that can easily turn into airy-fairy speculation.

And most of our experts are consumers, not designers, of the medium.

You've asked an extremely broad design question without providing any specific context so that answers can advise a course of action.

If it were "I'm trying to accomplish X in my game, should I exclude Int because of that?" that'd be a lot easier to get a grip on.

But a theory question without a practical application is gonna get heavily scrutinised because --in the experience of the Stack-- it's just going to turn to woolgathering.

@BESW, I don't know if you intention there is on defending stack, correcting me... I just don't know what you want by these comments.

But I am tired now.

I doubt I will learn anything.

I know your intentions are probably good.

But next time, I will just come here to discuss something.

I am clearly not made for stack.

Or if you find me annoying, just stop answering and I will go somewhere else to discuss stuff.

Again. Sorry if I sound dramatic. I do not want to make it look like I am the victim here.

I know I am not following your rules for a good question.

I still think it's an interesting question, but it's enough outside the Stack's comfort zone that it's going to take careful thought to make it work in this specific context.

I just don't want the frustration in the future.

I know it's very frustrating. I've faced similar frustration.

@Althis Here's a suggestion. Next time you're curious about why an RPG has a feature, ask us about why that RPG has that feature. There's meaningful discussion to be had around that, for any number of features.

In D&D sometimes the answer will be "... 'cause Chainmail did it and we don't know why" or something. D&D has a lot of features that exist for historical requirements.

I'm going to grab some tea.

Please flag the question for deletion.

I personally don't know how to do it.

One thing the Stack's found, repeatedly, is that asking a very specific question is helpful to many people with similar questions; asking a very broad question in hopes of being useful to many people... usually gets answers that aren't useful to anybody.

Is there an easy way for me to do it?

@Althis Flag it for moderator attention and explain you'd like it to be deleted.

They may decline.

Although, the deletion thingy made a good point.

It does have answers.

Should it be deleted?

No need to delete it.

I will just leave it be then.

Heck, you've got a cumulative +15 rep from it.

As a person who just admitted not want to use stack ever again, you can probably guess how much I care.

Sadly, as a programmer, that will probably not be the case...

Hmm. @Althis It just occurred to me (not sure why it didn't before) that your Int/Int thing may be struggling to become a discussion about immersion as a play goal.

And, just figured out that the little marker on the chat wasn't referring to a tag in the main room.

But on this one.

Sorry for the delay.

Do you think it will be more useful for the community that way?

I had honestly just given up.

But I appreciate your willingness to help enough to work a little harder for it.

At this point, I think it's the sort of thing to talk about in chat and eventually maybe work out a question but not be focused on that as an endpoint.