Plan as much as possible and run through it in your head until you know what this genius will do and call his shots quickly, so he seems quick-witted.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1032566F(ad-libbed on the spot by the GM in the heat of the moment, eg player fireballs the Int 19 mindflayer, instead of taking normal damage the GM decides on the spot that the mindflayer would have anticipated this and drank a potion of fire resistance enroute to fight the party - either because the mindflayer has reports of the party using fire elsewhere and/or as a common spell attack in a high magic world, the mindflayer comes prepared).

I think at the very most I would roll a check to see if the flayer even had a potion, as well (if I had done zero prep work) an INT check to see if it had drunk it in advance.

It's easy to be unfair & unrealistic in treatment of high INT NPCs. IRL high intelligence is definitely a battlefield advantage at all levels but does not and cannot give anything like the omniscience that superhero genre sometimes attributes to it, because war is chaotic. "In war everything is very simple, but the simple things are very complicated" (Clausewitz). Making & taking a potion of fire resistance likely comes at the expense of other options. Trying to second guess all possibilities IRL is a recipe for paralysis.

In reality the big advantage of high INT I think is the ability to rapidly *adapt* to changing circumstances, to operate inside the enemy's OODA loop (Boyd).

For me, a classic example of high intelligence on the battlefield was the outcome of the 1973 Yom Kippur War - the Egyptians had a good plan competently executed, and achieved a surprise attack, but subsequently were unable to react to changing events on the battlefield (and beyond) as fast as the Israelis, leading to their eventual defeat. Israeli generals like Sharon made mistakes and took losses, but were able to operate within the decision loop of the enemy and eventually collapsed the Egyptian front.

So, I think a good way to show high INT is not to have the enemy genius anticipate all PC action; have them rapidly *adapt* to PC action and formulate new plans. One thing I commonly do with eg Archmage battles is have them teleport/D-door away quickly, then make plans with what they've learned from the initial engagement and come back at a time of their choosing, much better prepared (or simply avoid combat if they think they can't win).

Quote from: Psikerlord;1032566For high Int PCs, allow Int checks to get clues

For genius level baddies, they deduce things normally impossible to deduce (eg sherlock holmes movie level)

I think this is reasonable, it supposes (a) the genius has turned his mind to the problem and (b) it is an area of expertise for him, like investigation & deduction for Holmes.

IMO intelligence is like a rifle, it has to be pointed in the right direction to work successfully. Holmes indeed makes a big deal about being supremely ignorant of things that don't concern him.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1032518It is aimed at undergrads. Now you're being facetious, you must be, there's no other way. There's a lot of political realism theory 101 in those vids, that's first-year crap and it's like "hey, I'm an adult too!" Warheads or Butterfingers for those same college kids 'outta the bible belt and middle america.

Well I think the PragerU presenters typically have an undergrad-level education and use that to give a patina of academic-ness to videos which from what I've seen (I've only watched a few) are about convincing Heartland-Americans that there is scientific evidence for the existence of God, that Creationism is scientifically supported, that Americanist Whig Liberalism and American fundamentalist Christianity are not in conflict, that sort of thing. A bit like watching Glenn Beck but more disingenuous since Beck really believes what he's saying, I don't think the PragerU people really do, or at any rate they are burying the discordance.

Quote from: S'mon;1032558They may not be geniuses, but they are likely to be in the top 5-10% of the population. I suspect an academic on $200K is likely in top 0.5% and particularly well-adjusted, to boot.

Edit: You may be right that very intelligent people may be less likely to play RPGs, contra Big Bang Theory. I think it most likely that likelihood of RPG playing correlates strongly with IQ 110+, but that there is negative correlation between RPG playing and earnings when you control for IQ; ie D&D appeals to smart slackers.

We might be circling a common point. The original point was about 'nerds' in general. And to that I stand by the point that with no entry burden and disappearing stigma (and 20 years of comic book movie blockbusters), the general 'nerd' pretty closely mirrors the general population. As to RPG-ers, the majority of the people I know outside of my own gaming circles who game are the IT subset of the "IT/Health Care/Academia" set I listed. And programmers/IT people probably roughly correlate with the 'smart slacker' type (although definitely not negative correlation to earnings), for certain values of smart (again, 90% seem to think they are in the top 1-10%, and I just don't see it), and slacker (or at least try to pass 35 hours/week off as 40, while all the doctors and academia ones never really leave work). It is entirely possible that I am just down on my own team because I had to let go of two 'valued employees' this year for what I'll call failures of adulthood. But still, if you get a group of them in a room and say, "this is the best and the brightest society has to offer," my response would be, "no, these are above-average guys who found a niche that is well-compensated based on rarity of skillset rather than actual challenge or hard work, and are riding that gravy train to the end with a big fat smile on their face, and who could blame them (but that still doesn't make them geniuses)."

Quote from: S'mon;1032403Because they're typically a lot closer than the average member of the population is. RPGers are not a typical cross section of the population.

In my experience people of all varieties of intelligence play RPGs. I've spent a lot of time with other groups of people (pipe smokers, occultists, freemasons, etc), and I've never found gamers to be more intelligent than any of these other groups. Generally, gamers tend to have more social ineptitude than some of these groups (well, not occultists, who are just as bad), but no greater intellect.

But they're vastly more likely to THINK they're extremely intelligent. You know, because they read a lot of Star Trek novels.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1032404One of the key things people never seem to realize is that in order to be a genius, you have to be a horrible person in other regards. RPGs are very good at representing this spectrum right at the fundamental level, the vintage 3d6 chargen or classic point-buy are particularly apt. You can't have it all -- something will give. Something has to give.

That's just silly. People being geniuses in terms of knowledge certainly doesn't guarantee that they will be athletic or socially competent or skilled at basic life tasks or moral, etc etc. But it in no ways prevents that. To put it in D&D terms, getting an 18 INT doesn't assure or prevent that you'll get an 18 in any of the other stats.

Quote from: S'mon;1032413I have been reading Jordan Peterson's book - he is definitely not a super genius! But in dnd terms he has high WIS and CHA as well as very high INT.

Which book have you been reading? The self-help guide written for ordinary people, which has been wildly successful because Peterson is intelligent enough to be able to talk to people at their level (something that a lot of people who think themselves very intelligent are utterly incapable of doing)? Or the actually academic one that was an actual work of academic genius?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032909Which book have you been reading? The self-help guide written for ordinary people, which has been wildly successful because Peterson is intelligent enough to be able to talk to people at their level (something that a lot of people who think themselves very intelligent are utterly incapable of doing)? Or the actually academic one that was an actual work of academic genius?

The self-help book of course. Like I said, I haven't got the impression he's a super-genius, but he is extremely intelligent. I admire how he combines extreme quick-wittedness with a kind of steel-trap-mind rationality, he comes across really well in his lectures and interviews. He is good at making concepts accessible to the target audience, I agree - and I agree this is something many academics are poor at (personally I prioritise clarity when teaching & writing in my field - my sociologist mother criticised my PhD thesis for being clear & accessible!). He does have the advantage that he is discussing material people do or should have an intuitive grasp on, it's a lot harder for writers & presenters in counter-intuitive fields such as some of the hard sciences. He definitely has a highly superior intellect and admirable personal qualities.

Edit: Actually my feeling is "12 Rules for Life" tends to meander and is overly verbose in places. From what I've seen I think Peterson is a better lecturer than writer. Or maybe it's not pitched well for me - I guess I maybe was expecting something closer to his lectures. I might get more out of "Maps of Meaning" if I can find a decently priced copy*. He certainly makes me engage more with the value of Jungian psychology - I still think Freud is pretty worthless except maybe for specific, unusual neuroses, whereas Jung I think does address universal themes.
*I see from Google there are presumably-unauthorised pdfs out there.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032907In my experience people of all varieties of intelligence play RPGs. I've spent a lot of time with other groups of people (pipe smokers, occultists, freemasons, etc), and I've never found gamers to be more intelligent than any of these other groups. Generally, gamers tend to have more social ineptitude than some of these groups (well, not occultists, who are just as bad), but no greater intellect.

But they're vastly more likely to THINK they're extremely intelligent. You know, because they read a lot of Star Trek novels.

That, and since those who think that way about themselves are not physically gifted (athletically or aesthetically), they MUST be intellectually gifted instead. The alternative is too unpleasant for them to accept.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032908People being geniuses in terms of knowledge certainly doesn't guarantee that they will be athletic or socially competent or skilled at basic life tasks or moral, etc etc. But it in no ways prevents that. To put it in D&D terms, getting an 18 INT doesn't assure or prevent that you'll get an 18 in any of the other stats.

Likewise, having crappy numbers in the other stats doesn't guarantee a high INT.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032907In my experience people of all varieties of intelligence play RPGs. I've spent a lot of time with other groups of people (pipe smokers, occultists, freemasons, etc), and I've never found gamers to be more intelligent than any of these other groups. Generally, gamers tend to have more social ineptitude than some of these groups (well, not occultists, who are just as bad), but no greater intellect.

But they're vastly more likely to THINK they're extremely intelligent. You know, because they read a lot of Star Trek novels.

This is the concept I was trying to capture.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032908That's just silly. People being geniuses in terms of knowledge certainly doesn't guarantee that they will be athletic or socially competent or skilled at basic life tasks or moral, etc etc. But it in no ways prevents that. To put it in D&D terms, getting an 18 INT doesn't assure or prevent that you'll get an 18 in any of the other stats.

All the research indicates that basically all positive traits correlate positively - good health correlates with high intelligence, for instance. There Is No Point Buy.

The only exception known to science is that rock band drummers' sense of rhythmn apparently does not correlate with IQ.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032907In my experience people of all varieties of intelligence play RPGs. I've spent a lot of time with other groups of people (pipe smokers, occultists, freemasons, etc), and I've never found gamers to be more intelligent than any of these other groups.

I bet occultists and freemasons average well above average IQ for the population. I suspect your pipe smokers do too.

Really, the way things work, almost any organised group's members will be smarter on average than the population they come from. Exception would be criminal groups - who will still be smarter than un-organised criminals. But freemasons & occultists will be MUCH smarter I'd think.

Quote from: S'mon;1032993I bet occultists and freemasons average well above average IQ for the population. I suspect your pipe smokers do too.

Really, the way things work, almost any organised group's members will be smarter on average than the population they come from. Exception would be criminal groups - who will still be smarter than un-organised criminals. But freemasons & occultists will be MUCH smarter I'd think.

S'mon, is your general point that people who bother to go out and do things, plus are capable of successfully organize a group of like minded individuals, are a step above those who don't/can't? Because I'll be more than happy to agree with that, but also am not sure what lessons we can take from that and apply to the situation at hand.

Well keep in mind that if group A has a bunch of people in the IQ 90-100 range, while group B has a bunch in the 100-110 range, group B is on average smarter than group A (to the extent that you agree that IQ is a useful test, which is extremely questionable).  If you are around both groups for an extended period of time, then eventually you'll be able to pick out the "smarter" group.  However, if you are around them doing something they are interested in doing, it gets a lot trickier.  Especially since people can be quite bright in some areas and dull in others, in combinations that many people would casually assume to be unlikely.  

As it happens, I've played with at least 3 groups that I know for a fact had significantly higher IQs than average (as in, the lows were rarely below 110, and often the scores were above 120).  It was more or less an accident of how the groups formed.  I've played in other groups where I'm fairly certain that several members would not have cracked 100 on the IQ test.  It is these experiences that have led me to the conclusion that the average gamer may or may not be smarter than the average person, but IQ definitely is a poor measure of intelligence.