Greetings!

As the DM, how do you approach dealing with the different intellectual abilities of the Players? To some extent, this dynamic can also effect YOU, as the DM, as well.

For example:

I have one player--he isn't a stupid person, by any means. However, s a player, and when it comes to socialization, he tends to be pretty rough, blunt, and very straightforward. He *can* react or interact with deeper plots, more complex motivations, "Nuances" with NPC's, but much of the time, you have to kind of lead him to it, or spoon feed it kind of slowly to him, for him to react to the situation in a manner other than just wanting to slaughter them with his battle axe.

In a nutshell, most problems to him look like nails...that need to be hammered down.

If that kind of player makes any sense. He's a great player, enthusiastic, and very action-oriented. Given to quick emotions, and straightforward motivations. He doesn't have a lot of patience for complexities. Either you are Good, or Evil. Neutrals are confused fucks that you should always be suspicious of, and watch closely. If they ever look like they aren't stepping up to the plate...well, you know what you can expect. He typically plays a Fighter, Barbarian, or Paladin.

Another player, he's really quick-witted and sharp, and very creative. Always looking for not just rules loopholes or creative interpretations of the rules, of equipment, of spells, but also always looking for ways to emotionally, politically, or psychologically manipulate or motivate people and creatures around him. Great player, and also very much into role-playing, and embracing different personalities of NPC's that his character meets and interacts with. He is the kind of player that could just play with his character and the DM, and keep YOU entertained for hours and hours getting into all kinds of things. He practically creates his own adventures, moment by moment. Starting romances with pretty bar girls, starting investigations of rough-looking guys hanging out on the street corner, striking up a friendship with the castle gate guard, helping an old grandmother load a wagon with sacks of grain and flour from the dry goods store. He's constantly thinking, constantly in motion, challenging the game, and you as the DM, as well. Some of his shenanigans have on occasion caught me off guard, and I have to work to keep ahead of him. He's one of those kinds of players! He typically plays a Rogue, Fighter, Ranger, or Bard.

How do you all feel about players like this? How do you keep your pens sharp when dealing with crazy rules-skill monkeys that try and construct crazy interpretations of rules and equipment? Also, how do you deal with players that are simple and brutal, and not likely to ever pick up quickly on anything too deep or complex?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I don't think this is a difference in intellectual ability - if I have anything, it's intellectual ability, but my PCs tend more towards the former type; though I do like to do some instigating, I hate puzzles in my RPGs.

I haven't seen much issue with players having varying IQs, rules competence, tactical savvy etc. A smart PC with a not-smart player can be an issue; a high-CHA PC with a not-charismatic player can be, too. A GM who is much less smart than the players can be an issue, but usually only if they are Viking-hat Gygaxian types. The GM who kept describing 'rusted bronze swords' used to annoy me. GMs who ask me for rules advice are fine. A group with low tactical competence can be an issue with a GM like me who likes a challenge - lots of dead PCs. A tactical group with a Monty Haul GM isn't a problem IME. The GM who changes up (fudges) encounters to 'challenge' the players can be a big problem though - eg the tactical group blow all their resources to kerbstomp a tough encounter, so the GM throws in a bunch more monsters then has to fudge like crazy to avoid a TPK.

Quote from: SHARK on November 02, 2021, 05:16:26 PM
(1) How do you keep your pens sharp when dealing with crazy rules-skill monkeys that try and construct crazy interpretations of rules and equipment?
(2)Also, how do you deal with players that are simple and brutal, and not likely to ever pick up quickly on anything too deep or complex?

(1) I put my judges' cap on and consider the merits of their proposal dispassionately, while not buckling to any social pressure. I definitely don't try to squelch good ideas, but nor do I allow obvious abuse of the rules.

(2) I give them a simple brutal game. This is a style I like anyway, for blowing off steam. I like emergent complexity, not constructed complexity. I don't force abstract puzzles on my players. The society's social dynamics may be complex, but the PCs don't have to deal with them at anything other than a surface level unless they want to.

It sounds like you have two players who complement each-other well. There is time for everything under the sun, a time for speech and a time for cutting heads.

I wouldn't be so sure about letting that first player be a paladin. Unfortunately, he sounds like the kind of guy who would play a paladin as lawful stupid (and I had enough of that in the 80's).

Lawful stupid is fine, the villains can be chaotic smart. Six deceased PCs later, the player starts figuring it out.

If I give any kind of bonus awards/rewards, I give them in part based on "involving the other characters".  Let's take bonus XP as an example (though I tend to use something else in most games).  Say that it is the old D&D idea of +5% of the XP needed for the next level.

If the really clever player comes up with a scheme--well he gets the benefit in the game of whatever the scheme does or doesn't do.  However, if he comes up with a scheme that gets half or more of the party doing something they enjoy--he also gets a bonus award.  One guy charges ahead by himself--whatever happens, happens.  He convinces the party to go do a gung ho fight, bonus for him.  Same applies to people convincing an important NPC to side with the party, or a good research dig, or a careful scouting survey.  Doesn't matter.  Make it fun for the group, bonus.

Now, I fully admit that once a group of players gets used to my style on this, the bonuses usually trail off.  They start to enjoy "involving the other characters" for its own sake, because everyone at the table is now playing a game they like. At that point, I let it be known that if they keep it up, they'll probably be some extra nice treasure sprinkled in--if they can find it and win it.  So if you can go straight to that point without the overt carrot, so much the better.

Anyone can make a fun game. Simple or complex.

It's the attitude they bring that makes the difference -- are they there to get engaged? Are they there to be a good sport? Are they there to give 100%? Or are they going to just bring down the whole table?

I would use the words Proclivities & Capacities. The former is a predisposition to certain behaviors, and the latter is the fullest extent one can pursue a certain direction.  This way we spare fee-fees as we reduce another down to type and weaknesses... er, I mean ennoble their choices as we give designation to their desires and strengths.

Strongest and Fastest Way: Make the Setting Have Teeth & Weight, Leave OOC Channels Open for GM Setting Clarity.

What that does is make loopholes patched and hardasses loosen because power is not in the game mechanics per se but in the fluid societal institutions... and only to a point. Because management is hard due to the nature of seeking consensus in scale, power projection from ramrods & sneaks is continually contested by the manifold of NPC others (including other fellow ramrods and sneaks). It may seem like a devious slight of hand, mirroring, diffusing, and diversifying power, but it emulates our regular mundane experiences well. Sure, you get a moment in time that gets swept up by the crazy of one direction, but it soon levels off then decays, and next another dog has its day. 

There are multiple type of "intelligence". Every player brings their type to the table.
It's up to the GM if this syncs well with the game they are running.
The players are who they are and may or may not play a matching character.
It is not uncommon for a person to want to be something they are not. Is this penalized in the game?
The "real world" is made up of many kinds of people, shouldn't games be as well? Especially if they are attempting to be "worlds" and not a rehash of a specific book or movie. 

Quote from: S'mon on November 02, 2021, 06:09:50 PM

Quote from: SHARK on November 02, 2021, 05:16:26 PM
(1) How do you keep your pens sharp when dealing with crazy rules-skill monkeys that try and construct crazy interpretations of rules and equipment?
(2)Also, how do you deal with players that are simple and brutal, and not likely to ever pick up quickly on anything too deep or complex?

(1) I put my judges' cap on and consider the merits of their proposal dispassionately, while not buckling to any social pressure. I definitely don't try to squelch good ideas, but nor do I allow obvious abuse of the rules.

(2) I give them a simple brutal game. This is a style I like anyway, for blowing off steam. I like emergent complexity, not constructed complexity. I don't force abstract puzzles on my players. The society's social dynamics may be complex, but the PCs don't have to deal with them at anything other than a surface level unless they want to.

Greetings!

Yep, my friend, I agree. I also generally avoid using *PUZZLES* in my game. I occasionally include basic, simple kinds, just for some level of variety, but I have noticed like some have pointed out, there are different kinds of intelligence, or different expressions. Some people are very good at figuring out puzzles--most however, are not. So, the DM having anything dependent upon puzzles is just condemning the players to failure or death because the fact is, most players are just incapable of figuring out puzzles. I have seen puzzles bring a game to a halt literally for hours as multiple people attempt to figure out a puzzle. I remember a lot of that from high school, and it convinced me then that it was simply a poor ingredient to add to a game scenario. Even if you do manage to find one person that figures the puzzle out after 10 minutes, 20 minutes, or an hour--you have the rest of the players looking at you like, "WTF"? Then, of course, you can get into the weeds of player's logical or problem-solving abilities vs the DM's abilities to accurately and adequately describe the situation and problem at hand--it's very easily a mind-numbing mess. That huge and salient reality is probably a primary motivator for the design of having skill checks that totally bypass both the player's logical skills, and the DM's explanatory skills, reducing it all to rolling a number against another easily determined number.

Probably also why multi-stage, multi-step mechanical traps are not a winning feature of adventure design, either. It is almost a forgone conclusion that your average group of players are not going to figure out the fucking trap, so they just all die. Nice going, DM. How many times are players going to want to reroll their characters for dying in something stupid like that? Yeah, I have known of lots of players that would leave the campaign entirely after anything more than one or maybe two episodes like that. Such uber-traps that seem to be the joy and delight of some DM's and wanna-be engineers everywhere, don't seem to be good ideas if you want to have a group of players willing to play at your table. So, while I love devious, wicked and evil traps--in my own campaigns, I tend to use them sparingly, or at least provide several options in solving them, defeating them, or otherwise dealing with them in some fashion.

I am also fond of Chess. Remember those old Dragon Magazine articles about Chess? Some of them also had special dungeon traps that embraced giant Chess-Table Floors, and Giant, Magical Chess Pieces. I *LOVE* those elements. But alas--most players would look at me like a deer-in-headlights look. So, yeah. I don't include lots of those usually. Sometimes something simple, like a talking Chess piece or something fun and silly.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Puzzles.

I discovered long ago that if you put a puzzle in with a solution the players will more often than not dance around the solution and never figure it out.  So I put puzzles in that have NO solution but when one of the players come up with an idea that sounds like it would work, ta da! They figured out the puzzle.   Saves a lot of time and frustration and it makes the players feel smart, which most of them are because their solutions are usually better thought out than what mine would have been LOL

Quote from: Opaopajr on November 03, 2021, 06:10:16 AM
I would use the words Proclivities & Capacities. The former is a predisposition to certain behaviors, and the latter is the fullest extent one can pursue a certain direction.  This way we spare fee-fees as we reduce another down to type and weaknesses... er, I mean ennoble their choices as we give designation to their desires and strengths.

Strongest and Fastest Way: Make the Setting Have Teeth & Weight, Leave OOC Channels Open for GM Setting Clarity.

What that does is make loopholes patched and hardasses loosen because power is not in the game mechanics per se but in the fluid societal institutions... and only to a point. Because management is hard due to the nature of seeking consensus in scale, power projection from ramrods & sneaks is continually contested by the manifold of NPC others (including other fellow ramrods and sneaks). It may seem like a devious slight of hand, mirroring, diffusing, and diversifying power, but it emulates our regular mundane experiences well. Sure, you get a moment in time that gets swept up by the crazy of one direction, but it soon levels off then decays, and next another dog has its day. 

Can you break this down? What do you mean by having OOC channels open for GM setting clarity?

And about the rest?

I have a player without a visual imagination, this is some condition he knows he has.

He has trouble engaging without crunch, or reference images.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on November 03, 2021, 03:40:06 PM
I have a player without a visual imagination, this is some condition he knows he has.

He has trouble engaging without crunch, or reference images.

I have had a player that cannot handle not having a map and minis to determine positions and distances--even for non-combat scenes. He was a total pain in the ass.