Except with 11 isn't it just a +9 for your diplomacy unless you have it as a class skill?
Talking about my character? 11 was the total, 8 was theirs. Items, mundane or magic, and skill ranks can go a long way. Sometimes people are prepared, and I like making up for shortcomings on my characters. The other players didn't put in so many skill points or buy items, so I actually passed them. That's a bit off topic though.
On topic, my own advice to handle min maxing is to do nothing. Especially if your using point buy. I don't think its a problem that someone plays a low whatever character. Mechanically he takes a penalty, and I don't like risking taking fun away from the player or telling him he can't participate.
...The DM is always engaging the players brain. This is part of roleplaying. Your character is imaginary. He doesn't have a brain so your brain is vicariously your characters brain. You are the player playing as that character so what your character thinks and what you think blur together at some point..You can't try to completely separate them and say "well that's my character's brain now" and then just do rolls. When you play as your character you're using your own brain to sometimes solve situations because you can't completely change into another person. Again, there is a good deal of leeway here because I cannot completely change myself. It would be impossible to judge what the intelligence score would be of every action to know if it was perfectly character appropriate. It would be impossible for a moderately intelligent person to become a genius like his character. It is, however, possible to reasonably expect that a player (using his own brainI am talking about understanding how a scene/encounter/scenario and what you, the DM, put in it matters and changes how the players interact, not just with the encounter, but with each other, their own characters and the game.
Once you change how you view puzzles, their relationship to Intelligence (the game stat) changes and the problem disappears.
Roleplaying game engage participants in lots of different ways during the course of play. I'm sure you'd agree that combat and social encounters are fun in different ways. Even in combat, there are very different elements of engagement for the players.
I can play and find my boardgaming/tactical nature is engaged in planning out how I do something. While my roleplaying nature is engaged as to the why I am doing something in a combat. The rewards for such engagement is different and I like them each to varying degrees from combat to combat and session to session.
A well placed puzzle is it's own type of engagement. A DM...
Here's the building of it.
1) A puzzle in this case is not solvable with a roll. Ie, the character could roll Knowledge (History) for a hint, but not the answer. No game mechanics are involved in the actual puzzle.
2) The puzzle is not interacting with the player through the character, the puzzle is interacting with the player directly. If the puzzle were interacting through the character, there would be a roll involved to represent that relationship.
3) As the DM, you ACTIVELY chose to include the puzzle.
Therefore: When a DM introduces a puzzle to the session, they have actively chosen to add an element to the game that interacts with the players out of character.
If you don't like that, as a DM, you should stop including puzzles, because you are actively working against yourself if you do.
Except realistically it's not going to work that way.
If there's no roll involved, then if the player doesn't know it, the character doesn't know it.
You are challenging the PLAYER to figure out the riddle, and then present it THROUGH his character if there's no roll involved. The answer has to come from somewhere, and if it's not coming from the character (I roll X, DM gives me Y) it's coming from the player, whether it passes through the character's mind or not.
Our party was in a dungeon, and ran across a puzzle gateway blocking our advance. A riddle was inscribed on the doorway.
After some discussion and thought, I happened on the answer, and proceeded to guide the party through the hazard in-character.
In this case, my dwarf had a 14 Int. Had he had a 7 Int instead, I would have explained the answer to my fellow players and one of their characters would have led the party through.
This is always how we've approached it. Stats are for resolving things in-game using the mechanical gadgets of the system. I prefer word puzzles, riddles, pattern recognition and so forth to be actually solved by the players rather than be reduced to a series of skill checks*. Since we'll have more fun if we can all participate in the riddle solving (and then have the high intelligence genius come up with the solution "again") I think that's the best way.
Fun > everything else, in my opinion.
It isn't the presentation of puzzles.
Its the act of trying to solve a puzzle that engages a player in a non-roleplaying method.
There is actually some neurological research that shows how puzzles affect the brain. The brain is switching through several modes of thinking very quickly, in an effort to find a solution. One of the things the brain does is quickly sort through connections, both widening it's field of search and narrowing it, and alternating back and forth as it does so.
Your brain actually distracts itself, looking through weaker connections to see if a solution resides there.
Engaging the players brain with a puzzle kind of turns off, or puts on the back burner, the section that was roleplaying a minute ago. It might quickly sort through them for inspiration to the puzzle, but it'll just as quickly start ignoring them as well.
In my own experience, it rings true to me as well. When I see people engaged with a puzzle, they're acting slightly differently than they do when not puzzle solving (regardless of the activity just prior, not just roleplaying). I know that my focus and attention behave differently when seeking creative solutions.
I'm not trying to indict DM's who include puzzles. I'm just saying, be aware of what you are doing and the consequences of your actions. Adjust your expectations and actions accordingly.
Instead of blaming players for not roleplaying to the hilt while puzzle solving, realize you've given them a different sort of task and that task is going to solicit behavior that is different than when you talk to them as an NPC.
If we're being completely literal then everything the Dm does is challenging the players who then act through their characters. Not just riddles.
I'm challenging the players to figure out how to use the best tactics to kill monster x.
I'm challenging the players to figure out how to cross bridge y.
Everything in the game is really going to the players.
Once the players have it, they need to put it through their "filter" of their characters and output it to me. When filtering it and being their character they need to honestly ask themselves "would my player realistically know this?" "Would my 7 intelligence character really be able to figure this out?" "how would my character really respond to this situation?" etc.
More than once I've seen great tactics fail due to bad dice rolls. I've also seen people use horrible tactics, but succeed because of good dice rolls.
There are differences and layers to how players engage with the game in different types of scenes.
THIS IS OKAY!
Actually, I'm done with you talking down to me. You've done it repeatedly, including trying to "explain what roleplaying is."
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Intelligence and Puzzles
Situation: The party comes across a puzzle in a dungeon.
Two extremes on how to resolve it:
Method A: You let the players figure out the puzzle, no rolls.
If you use this method, you aren't engaging the characters at all, you are engaging the players. What is on their sheet is irrelevant (unless it's an object to solve the puzzle with).
Method B: The players can roll their character stats/skills to achieve a solution.
The characters are being engaged. In this case, success/failure is determined by the sum of their bonus and roll. The player's ability to do something is irrelevant.
If you allow Method A, you are declaring (intentionally or not) that dumping Intelligence is irrelevant to solving puzzles. If you don't like that, I suggest to moving more towards a Method B solution, but you can't use Method A and complain about the players not using their stats, because you have already decided that their stats are meaningless.
If you put in a puzzle for the PLAYERS to solve, don't complain that a player solved it. It makes you sound like a jerk.
Here's a question? If you use method B exclusively, should you even bother to create the riddle/puzzle, or should it just be Riddle (DC 25), Puzzle (DC 30), etc? Seems to me that's sapping the fun out of the game (I say that, and I pretty much suck at riddles).
Here's a question? If you use [the roll to solve the puzzle method] exclusively, should you even bother to create the riddle/puzzle, or should it just be Riddle (DC 25), Puzzle (DC 30), etc? Seems to me that's sapping the fun out of the game (I say that, and I pretty much suck at riddles).
Well, what's fun for your players?
If your players are into role-playing, they're probably more about character interaction than they are about puzzle solving, so roll-for-the-riddle is a good thing.
If they're into miniature-based war games, puzzles are a waste of time that could otherwise be spent moving into flanking position, so roll-for-the-riddle is a good thing.
If they're into solving puzzles -- that is, if the PLAYERS are into solving puzzles -- then presenting the PLAYERS with puzzles to solve is a good thing. But in that case you are giving the players what they want instead of what the characters would necessarily like or be good at. And possibly discouraging role-playing, because the player who enjoys the riddle the most may be playing the character who would be the most useless.
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Here's a question? If you use method B exclusively, should you even bother to create the riddle/puzzle, or should it just be Riddle (DC 25), Puzzle (DC 30), etc? Seems to me that's sapping the fun out of the game (I say that, and I pretty much suck at riddles).
Replace puzzle with trap and I suppose you have your answer.
Here's a question? If you use method B exclusively, should you even bother to create the riddle/puzzle, or should it just be Riddle (DC 25), Puzzle (DC 30), etc? Seems to me that's sapping the fun out of the game (I say that, and I pretty much suck at riddles).Replace puzzle with trap and I suppose you have your answer.
This has been an issue since first edition. Many "dungeon masters" would insist that a player describe the method they were using to disable the device, find the secret door, et cetera. ("Lifting the statue's left arm reveals a trap door in front of the fountain.")
Isn't that what a Search check is for?
Some people find it fun to describe going pixel-by-pixel, Monkey Island like, through the room looking for any two random objects they can rub together. Some people don't even like doing that in Monkey Island.
Here's a question? If you use method B exclusively, should you even bother to create the riddle/puzzle, or should it just be Riddle (DC 25), Puzzle (DC 30), etc? Seems to me that's sapping the fun out of the game (I say that, and I pretty much suck at riddles).Replace puzzle with trap and I suppose you have your answer.
Or with search check. Here's the thread.
Basically, the OP is complaining that his players want to rely on the in-game mechanic (rolling Perception checks) instead of role-playing a description of what they're actually doing. I must admit that my sympathies in this instance are on the players' side. If the game master tells me that "this is a room with a bed, a desk, two chairs, and a fireplace," it seems rather silly for me to say "I search the room, including the bed, the desk, the chairs, and the fireplace." But it seems even sillier for me to say "I search the bed <roll>, the desk <roll>, the chairs <roll, roll> and the fireplace <roll> as well as the floor <roll> ceiling <roll> and walls <roll, roll, roll, roll>."
I think it's reasonable to expect more of players than for them to just rely on saying they make a roll.
What good does it do?
I do a perception check. What are you looking at? What are you looking for?
I'm looking at everything you just told me was in the room, and I'm looking for anything at all.
You just gave me a list of what was in the room. I don't think either of our playing experiences are enhanced by my parroting the list back to you.
Either I parroted the list back to you correctly, in which case it's purely a memory exercise; or I parroted it back incorrectly and missed something, in which case it's a memory exercise that I failed and as a result slows the game down; or you deliberately misled me in the description by failing to provide some important detail.... which is the whole reason I asked to search the room, to find out the details you deliberately omitted at the first description.
Then it's your fault for requiring a roll when you let the players answer the riddle already.
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I think it's reasonable to expect more of players than for them to just rely on saying they make a roll.What good does it do?
I do a perception check. What are you looking at? What are you looking for?I'm looking at everything you just told me was in the room, and I'm looking for anything at all.
You just gave me a list of what was in the room. I don't think either of our playing experiences are enhanced by my parroting the list back to you.
Either I parroted the list back to you correctly, in which case it's purely a memory exercise; or I parroted it back incorrectly and missed something, in which case it's a memory exercise that I failed and as a result slows the game down; or you deliberately misled me in the description by failing to provide some important detail.... which is the whole reason I asked to search the room, to find out the details you deliberately omitted at the first description.
I disagree. If the GM says that there are several things in the room, you should say that you check out something in particular. If one of my players does a general search of the room, i automatically add a +10 bonus to the DC of hidden items, traps etc. Unless they specify, i take it that they are not focusing on anything in particular.
I did not read half of these post, and I am not telling anyone how to play the game. I am just saying how I would handle it.
I run my low intelligence/wisdom NPC's as making tactical errors from time to time. Now I don't want suicidal players, so I don't expect for them to do the same, but if they are too smart in and out of combat my NPC's become less stupid even if their ability scores stay the same.
Here's a question? If you use method B exclusively, should you even bother to create the riddle/puzzle, or should it just be Riddle (DC 25), Puzzle (DC 30), etc? Seems to me that's sapping the fun out of the game (I say that, and I pretty much suck at riddles).Intelligence and Puzzles
Situation: The party comes across a puzzle in a dungeon.
Two extremes on how to resolve it:
Method A: You let the players figure out the puzzle, no rolls.
If you use this method, you aren't engaging the characters at all, you are engaging the players. What is on their sheet is irrelevant (unless it's an object to solve the puzzle with).
Method B: The players can roll their character stats/skills to achieve a solution.
The characters are being engaged. In this case, success/failure is determined by the sum of their bonus and roll. The player's ability to do something is irrelevant.
If you allow Method A, you are declaring (intentionally or not) that dumping Intelligence is irrelevant to solving puzzles. If you don't like that, I suggest to moving more towards a Method B solution, but you can't use Method A and complain about the players not using their stats, because you have already decided that their stats are meaningless.
If you put in a puzzle for the PLAYERS to solve, don't complain that a player solved it. It makes you sound like a jerk.
If I'm giving advice to a DM, I would say experiment with the different methods. Learn who they work and how your players react and what they enjoy about the different methods. Then plan your adventures in a way that is the most fun.
I'm not talking about badwrongfun. I've been talking about recognizing how different situations create different kinds of behavior and reactions, then using that knowledge to create a better game.
If I'm giving advice to a DM, I would say experiment with the different methods. Learn who they work and how your players react and what they enjoy about the different methods. Then plan your adventures in a way that is the most fun.
I'm not talking about badwrongfun. I've been talking about recognizing how different situations create different kinds of behavior and reactions, then using that knowledge to create a better game.
I'd go even further I think - as a DM, I think it's more important to cater to a playstyle your players enjoy than one that you would if you were playing (and sadly it's very easy to cater to your own tastes instead of theirs).
.I've been noticing this of late in our group - I prefer very laid back systems where everything is a guideline and there's basically fighter, magicuser, cleric and thief with basic class features and a solid dose of the DM making up subsystems on the fly. Another guy in our group enjoys scouring the net for reviews and trying out new systems with exciting mechanics (sometimes complicated, sometimes simple - he just likes the novelty and the challenge of mastering a new ruleset, I suspect). It occurred to me that it would be best from a fun perspective if he ran original D&D or the various oldschool clones and I ran a new system every month or so - despite the fact that it's very likely we'll do the reverse.. :/