So suppose you've just introduced a new npc and a player makes a real smartass observation in character.
You are dumbstruck.
What do you do?
I've had this happen too many times to count, so now I just handwave it like this
NPC: I am Lord Smartron, Cleric of Intelligence
Smartass PC: Why is it that <insert logical contraditiction here>
GM: "Lord Smartron gives you a logically sound counterargument."
In short I overrule whatever smart thing they were saying by simply stating that whoever they managed to corner with their statement provides a counterargument too strong for them to argue against.
It might be possible for some people to actually think up counterarguments, but I have this thing that makes me utterly incapable of coming up with smart things to say unless I'm prepared for them (i am recovering from social phobia). As a result: I railroad any attempts to be smart using the above method.
How do you handle it?
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I ask, "do you say that to them?"
If they say yes then I say either, "he walks away without offering to help you," or "initiative rolls."
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a) Bring in a new factor that prevents logical conflict, even if I can't explain it well enough. I usually do this if I already anticipated the logical conflict, whether I've figured out how to handle it yet or not. Hand-wave if necessary by saying "you two start conversing on a level that we mere peons won't understand anyway, so let's resolve who outsmarts whom with a die roll". It sucks when I have to handwave it, but sometimes that's all you have. But ALWAYS give the PC a counter-roll unless the outcome is fixed. (If it's fixed, then just make the PC do a roll to see if they understand it.)
b) Congratulate the player on catching me on an unintended contradiction. Then take a 5-er to figure out whether I want to fix the contradiction (usually this) or go back to part a. If I take more than 5m, I handwave it and come up with something between sessions.
c) If for some reason neither of the above will work, I take out my DM notes and burn them. Metaphorically speaking. Then I call for a break while I figure out wtf to do. If it's not plot important then I just do a random roll and move on rather than burning my notes.
Jayson's comment can work sometimes too, if the enemy is trying to prove to themselves that your PCs are idiots. Some might get pissed about it, but few will attack over it unless they were already so inclined.
You tell the player he loses his talking privileges until he can provide a complete proof for Squaring the Circle.
Or depending on the context provide an insetting BS excuse. I ran a setting where Fate could have errors, I solved all sorts of problems by announcing "Continuity Error!" Of course continuity errors would attract the guys responsible for repairing Fate being involved in to many errors kinda makes you a big target, so you don't want the GM using them to often.
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Do what real people do- cherry pick your information and place more importance on your information than theirs. If the NPC is particularly obnoxious, accuse the PC of cherry picking their information.
Real people believe lots of dumb things, generally based on confirmation bias and inaccurate information. Your NPCs can do that too. If the PCs persist, just use a circular argument.
If the NPC is right, just tell the PCs they're wrong because they haven't taken all factors into account. Magic and Gods are two particulars that you have access too that are always pretty unpredictable.
Last but not least, don't over use. Always keep arguments minimal and brief. Attack or distract the party if necessary. Remember, you're all there to game and have fun.
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How I handle that is so situational that there is no one answer.
Some super-smart guys HATE having their intelligence questioned. Smart-ass stuff like that is an automatic push in the negative direction on the diplomacy chart, right to unhelpful or even hostile.
Some super-smart guys just answer tough questions with tougher questions. Doesn't even have to be related. Something like "I'll answer that one when you answer this one."
Some super-smart guys are so arrogant that they don't even bother answering trivial nonsense from inferior minds. At best, they ignore such stuff and continue right on with their own (much more important, of course) intentions. At worst, they reprimand the impudent half-wit who had the temerity to interrupt such a superior being - said reprimand might be very unpleasant indeed. Somewhere in between is the middle road, the "Don't waste my time with that drivel - now, can we get back to important business" approach.
Interesting comments. Thanks.
The incident was that a situation developed during a campaign quite a while ago where a barbarian (int 8) found a logical flaw in some religion of Eberron. I wasn't even able to properly argue because I had no brought the discussion of the religion itself into the game myself, so it was out of my hands.
Essentially a player had a character, paladin, who belonged to this church and he wanted to go visit their temple for one reason or another. Someone started a discussion with the priest of the temple and the barbarian spotted some kind of contradiction.
Next time this occurs I will simply reward anti-inspiration for their next combat roll. They will have to roll twice and take the worst.
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Never punish your player for attempting to participate in a constructive manner. For all that player knew that contradiction was plot important and should be pointed out.
For things like this it's best to be up front with your player: "That's a good point, but not really relevant to the plot so I don't want to spend time on it. Your PC is Int 8, so they probably just missed something in the conversation. The priests correct you by adding that missing bit. Moving on..."
EDIT: If it *is* relevant to the plot, make their understand or lack thereof based on a die roll. You can handwave the roll for those with big modifiers (like the guy with +15 to all knowledges), but for an Int 8 barbarian that's an unlikely scenario. And have a real explanation on hand. If it's plot relevant and you *don't* have one, then think fast, because the players deserve one.
Do not worry- many times, the problems of local politics, traditions, actual ability to get your hands on particular resources, natural landscape, etc. can make plenty of reasons why the thing is the way it is.
Having to make concessions to a drunken inbred noble can give you a lot of excuses.
Maybe they realize it is a poor system, but they can't get the money or support needed to start up the new one.
Have to go the long way around? The short way may piss off the neighboring nation, due to border issues. Also, the usual only-slightly-out-of-the-way path met with a landslide last week (could be a plot point- enemies are trying to delay your quest and make you more vulnerable).
Maybe it is a tradition that is an arbitrary ritual. Maybe the god of intelligence is obsessive compulsive, and he is basing the ritual off of the circumstances from something 10,000 years ago, and he doesn't want to change it (we think he has been going a bit senile ever since the fight with the goddess of poison; he has never been the same)
Need a weird ingredient that doesn't make sense? When we made this magical artifact, we had to skimp on some things since we couldn't get dragon heart before our witch's brain rotted. So we substituted it with wyvern, and well....the wyvern is moody about the whole affair. He makes weird requests just to piss us off before he lets us use the artifact. Many artifacts may have these kinds of problems.
Having to live in the 'real world' makes the use of perfect logic...shaky... at best. Being with power like throwing their weight around. And you sometimes have to make compromises with the circumstances because actually practicing the logical path is too costly right now. So the best answer is to have the cleric of intelligence cringe, suck air through his teeth, and give out a long sigh.
Interesting comments. Thanks.
The incident was that a situation developed during a campaign quite a while ago where a barbarian (int 8) found a logical flaw in some religion of Eberron. I wasn't even able to properly argue because I had no brought the discussion of the religion itself into the game myself, so it was out of my hands.
Essentially a player had a character, paladin, who belonged to this church and he wanted to go visit their temple for one reason or another. Someone started a discussion with the priest of the temple and the barbarian spotted some kind of contradiction.
Next time this occurs I will simply reward anti-inspiration for their next combat roll. They will have to roll twice and take the worst.
Soooo, a character with an 8 intelligence found a logical flaw in a religion on Eberron?
That's both hilarious AND adorable. After I stopped laughing ala Rocket Raccoon I wanted to respond. Any character with an intelligence of 8 might have a point when it comes to arguing any religion, but whether or not anyone will listen is another matter entirely. Unless the low intelligence characters have a bluff skill in the double digits they can't help but project their low intelligence.
But working in the Barbarian's favor is his reputation and intimidation. Because anyone knows that arguing religion with a Barbarian is probably not a good idea no matter who is correct.
But really, if a cleric of whatever God loses in a straight debate with any character with an 80 IQ that cleric should receive no spells from said God for the rest of his or her life - full stop.
Disintegrate.
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I find it strange how seriously y'all are treating this...
Way I see, it, there are two key possibilities:
A) The contradiction is plot important. In this case, there is an answer. Which means there's a DC to find the answer, and a plan for if they find it. If the player makes a correct blind guess then bypass the DC and move on with the plot. (Keeping in mind that their blind guess could just as easily have been wrong, and often is.)
B) The contradiction is not plot important. In this case, you make a quick joke of it, then move on. Don't dwell, don't punish, etc. Players often try to latch onto something irrelevant. Don't validate it by giving it any real table time, good or bad.
Now, you might get something that fits into B then decide to give it relevance, in which case you handle it as A (and may have to ad-hoc a DC or something).
Honestly, your initial reaction of "He gives a sound counter-argument that I can't think of right now. And we move on to..." isn't a bad one at all if the contradiction is not plot important. At worst I might add an opposed knowledge check to see who's right, then opposed diplomacy to convince each-other, but I wouldn't spend time on the explanations themselves. Obviously I would skip that entirely if they weren't trained in an appropriate knowledge.
Graceful handling of being outsmarted is a very important skill to have as a DM. No matter how smart you are, sometimes you roll a 1 and the player rolls a 20.
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Why does any religion have logical inconsistencies in it? (Because that happens A LOT);
- Error in translating the scriptures.
- Different theological schools muddies the issue over the last thousand years.
- It made sense at the time, but that was a completely different society and those commandments haven't aged so well.
- It actually does make sense, you just don't know the whole picture. The whole picture is on a need to know basis. If you keep asking questions then the Higher Ups will become suspicious.
- It actually makes sense but it's more complicated than mere mortals can understand.
- Office politics.
- It's inconvenient now, but it's a contingency for a rare emergency and when it happens you'll be sooo glad you're prepared.
- It's a conspiracy. An evil cult managed to pervert your religion's dogma.
- It's weird but the inquisition think anyone questioning them is a heretic. They're kind of pyre-happy right now. Shut up before you get us all into trouble. Only official theologians are supposed to read those chapters anyway; this mess is what you get when untrained louts like you read something, don't understand it, and make a fuss.
- It is not the message that is important, but our obedience to it.
- Hey, you might be on to something here. Do you have a couple of hours/weeks/years to spare? We should totally look into this.
- You're right. The current church leadership must be corrupt. Let's nail this list of theses to the church door. I'm sure the situation can be resolved peacefully.
But really, if a cleric of whatever God loses in a straight debate with any character with an 80 IQ that cleric should receive no spells from said God for the rest of his or her life - full stop.Riiight, because clerics never dump their int...
The cleric and the barbarian might be on equal level, intellectually, but the cleric damned well better have enough ranks in Knowledge(religion) to win any theological debate using scripture and evidence.
Whether or not the barbarian concedes that faith in scripture is a valid position in debate might be a separate issue, but if he disputes that, then I'd dispute his 80 IQ.
But really, if a cleric of whatever God loses in a straight debate with any character with an 80 IQ that cleric should receive no spells from said God for the rest of his or her life - full stop.Riiight, because clerics never dump their int...The cleric and the barbarian might be on equal level, intellectually, but the cleric damned well better have enough ranks in Knowledge(religion) to win any theological debate using scripture and evidence.
Whether or not the barbarian concedes that faith in scripture is a valid position in debate might be a separate issue, but if he disputes that, then I'd dispute his 80 IQ.
Really? Lots of clergy just say "because God wills it" and think that ends the argument. Or start start screaming Heretic! if they think they are losing the argument.
I ask, "do you say that to them?"
If they say yes then I say either, "he walks away without offering to help you," or "initiative rolls."
Yup, that's what I do. Being a smartass can be fun among friends or in movies, but doing that in society provideds no benefit only disadvantage so, becoming disadvantaged in game society should be identical.