Quote from: Willie the Duck;1032996S'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.

My main point is that people tend to be surrounded by people of similar intelligence, and likely everyone* reading this has a peer group of above average intelligence.

*Except Doc Sammy.

During Navy Nuclear Power Program Training, I was with a bunch of highly intelligent people. That absolutely did not mean that they had common sense, or emotional intelligence, or could translate that intellect into practical application. Case in point, the guy who never made less than a 99.5% on all his exams, but who couldn't be trusted to screw in a light bulb without electrocuting himself.

If there ever was a common characteristic of those highly intelligent people, it is that a lot of them were just downright weird.

Quote from: S'mon;1032558I 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.

No such correlation AFAICT:).

Quote from: RPGPundit;1032907In my experience people of all varieties of intelligence play RPGs.

+1

Quote from: jeff37923;1033036If there ever was a common characteristic of those highly intelligent people, it is that a lot of them were just downright weird.

Yeah, I was just going to say that.
But I'd like to add that the same is true for other people that are outstanding in their fields, so I've come to suspect that those are related;).

Quote from: S'mon;1033033My main point is that people tend to be surrounded by people of similar intelligence, and likely everyone* reading this has a peer group of above average intelligence.

*Except Doc Sammy.

This pre-emptively assumes that everyone here is of above average intelligence. That's possible. I don't think the venue lends itself to readily finding that out. But my point is that significantly more (let's just stick with 'gamers' to keep some consistency) think that they are highly intelligent than actually are. Thus, if I am correct, there are probably a few of us who are indeed hanging out with peer groups that corroborate your point of 'people tend to be surrounded by people of similar intelligence,' and that doesn't make the peer group of above average intelligence.

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

Freemasons, maybe, because they pre-select. To be a freemason you have to, at the bare minimum:
-have a stable enough financial situation that you can afford to own a suit, pay annual dues, and pay for the dinners.
-be sufficiently reliable to be able to attend regularly and participate in the basic activities
-have enough social intelligence to be able to get several people to vouch for your entry
-not have a criminal record

So this all requires a certain amount of baseline intelligence to accomplish just as a condition for entry.

But 'occultists'? No. If you consider everything under the occult umbrella, you've got quite the panorama of human fuck-ups. Even if you look at more specific subsets like 'ceremonial magicians', you have all kinds of ridiculously incompetent people at the intellectual, social, and personal responsibility levels.

And if you're talking about pipe-smokers in the sense of people who might belong to a pipe-smokers club (formal or not), you again have a few basic conditions for membership. But aside from that, you will see a wide range of dumbasses who smoke pipes.

Now, could you say that any of the above might still be slightly above the human average if you count the species as a whole, including all the shithole countries? Who knows? Maybe.

But generally speaking, any group that doesn't have any condition for entry outside of self-identification is unlikely to be above the general average intelligence of western society.

Again, the perception that nerds somehow are is really just a product of the idea some nerds have (and some non-nerds have of nerds) that somehow because they like Star Trek it must mean they're smart. Because somehow it's assumed that star trek is more intellectual than, say, westerns.

The number of star trek nerds I know who could argue endlessly about canon but couldn't manage to pass high school indicates to me that this is not the case.

I do think it's quite possible that a group of RPGers (or Pundit's occultists) might think they were say IQ 130+ or even IQ 150+, when really their mean IQ was around 110.

I just don't think it's likely you would find a group of RPGers with mean IQ 100 or lower. Maybe in jail.

Quote from: S'mon;1033414I do think it's quite possible that a group of RPGers (or Pundit's occultists) might think they were say IQ 130+ or even IQ 150+, when really their mean IQ was around 110.

This wouldn't surprise me. Despite being everyone's go-to shorthand for intelligence--it really isn't, intelligent isn't the same as smart, and the entire test really works better at differentiating the middle (and children) than the upper end of adults--exactly what the rarities are for 110, 130, 150, plus what each vaguely means, don't seem to be really in the common vernacular.

QuoteI just don't think it's likely you would find a group of RPGers with mean IQ 100 or lower. Maybe in jail.

I would think people below a certain threshold, maybe the bottom 40%, are under-represented (as well as the top 10%). Even then, we've just captured that maybe (maybe) the average for RPGers is higher than the overall total population, by some amount. Not sure exactly what that gets us.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1033515Not sure exactly what that gets us.

That I was right on the Internet!

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1031829I play every character slightly more stupid than they are.  This means that the characters that are smarter than me can just be played to the full measure of my intelligence, which relatively makes them the smartest NPCs in the game.  I usually rationalize this as various flaws the NPCs have that lead to less than optimal behavior. (This guy is smart enough not to do X, but lacks the will to stop himself.)  As a bonus, it also makes the really stupid characters stand out.  I view this as akin to stage makeup used for a character on film.  

For players, if someone is playing a character that is extremely intelligent (or wise or socially adept or similar mental or emotionally advanced), then I give the player a lot more wiggle room to get help from the rest of the players, even in a crunch.  We have even formalized this in some campaigns:  A high intelligence wizard player has the ability when making a decision to stop the game, ask for a quick discussion by the players, and then pick the suggestion that sounds best to him from all the players, as if he came up with it himself.  The wizard player does still have to make the decision.  This doesn't always lead to the best decision, but it does create the feel that the wizard has considered all the angles.

Edit:  Also, I'm smart enough to be well aware that intelligent people do stupid things all the time.

Okay - I love this idea. Consider it stolen!

Quote from: S'mon;1033414I do think it's quite possible that a group of RPGers (or Pundit's occultists) might think they were say IQ 130+ or even IQ 150+, when really their mean IQ was around 110.

I just don't think it's likely you would find a group of RPGers with mean IQ 100 or lower. Maybe in jail.

That MIGHT be true, but I guess it comes down to how you define intelligence. Because when I say Intelligence I don't just mean raw IQ, I also mean education and what kind of intellectual material one consumes.

I know a bunch of gamers who think they're geniuses BECAUSE they read Drzzt novels instead of Tom Clancy novels. Guys who think liking science fiction makes them geniuses, in spite of no other supporting evidence in anything they've actually done in their lives.  Often these people are stunningly ignorant of the humanities, the sciences, history, the classics of literature, politics or everything else, but they're convinced that they're waaay smarter than the 'normies' because the normies watch "24" while they watch "Star Trek: Voyager".

I have no idea what the actual IQ of these people are, but in light of everything I've said above, to me that's totally irrelevant.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1033805I know a bunch of gamers who think they're geniuses BECAUSE they read Drzzt novels instead of Tom Clancy novels.

I bet people who read Tom Clancy average higher than normal INT, too!

Quote from: S'mon;1033810I bet people who read Tom Clancy average higher than normal INT, too!

...buh? In that they read novels at all? Again, I guess a marginal uptick from straight average. We are really treading into 'that I was right on the Internet!' territory, and not jokingly. Seriously, what are we proving--that people who do anything at all are going to be above average (because yes the overall total population includes people who do nothing)? Because that's close to where we are landing. Like being into sci fi/fantasy or comic books, there is nothing about Tom Clancy novels that speaks to me as being intelligent (and in fact, kinda-sorta indicates to me that one is probably not a top-10%-er). Tom Clancy is a modern times Michael Crichton (or non-horror Stephen King) -- his books are almost defined by being broad appeal with no audience gatekeeping based on interest or intellect.

I don't think reading either Tom Clancy or Forgotten Realms novels are a particular sign of intelligence.

OK, I think the best solution I've come across is the one presented in a Mongoose Traveller supplement that my GM is using:). I just got a better overview of it (since I play a character with high education but don't own the supplement yet).
It seems that if you reach the top tier of EDU and/or INT stat, you get a number (one or two per stat) of abilities, that you can use the same number of times per day. Stuff like lightning-fast calculations, making unobvious conclusions (one of them allows you to ask the GM a number of questions based on an Int roll), and calculating possible trajectories are all there.
The best part is, you don't have to stick to the "safe" number of uses;).
It's just that if you go overboard using the abilities, the GM starts hitting you with a genius' latent instabilities:p!

Quote from: RPGPundit;1034289I don't think reading either Tom Clancy or Forgotten Realms novels are a particular sign of intelligence.

Agreed:D!
That said, they're no sign of lack thereof, either.