Cleverness

"You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! "

Today is another in our series of really obvious concepts that I've seen plague games. I'm getting into minutiae a lot lately, but I promise more big, universal concepts are coming. The problem with writing about those is that they're way harder and require more thought. It's strange, but I can boil something down pretty easily if it's just a minor point to some, but huge universal concepts have way more pressure to them. BUT ANYWAY, enough of me complaining, today we're talking about "Cleverness" and why I hate it.

That's what we call an inflammatory lead-in to hook your interest. I don't mean being intelligent. I'm not suddenly saying I crave the company of the blind and stupid. Cleverness is defined a little more closely here and it's thanks to a book I enjoyed called the Tao of Pooh that made me think of it in a different light. Cleverness is defined(for our purposes) as a desire to prove yourself smarter or more clever than others.

Yeah, suddenly you see why this is a Pen and Paper game concept, right? I'm sure we've all met a few of "that guy" who constantly comes to game with real world tips and tricks, science knowledge, home chemistry recipes or worse, social psychology tricks to use in a pen and paper game. Or, maybe you know someone who immediately looks for a loophole in every encounter, tries to find things the GM hasn't thought of, or worse, constantly tries to trick others in an OOC sense. In my experience, most of these people don't really know what they're doing wrong, but this is a fairly bad habit to get into. First off, a lot of people feel things like bringing real world knowledge to a game is some sort of method to "logically" eliminate a skill check. We've talked about challenge a lot on the blog, and there's a big, big difference between solving a challenge fairly and thinking you can "outsmart" the GM or "skip" a skill check. The difference is very, very obvious, and you should know which is which. Thinking PNP games are a 'fight' between the GM and the Players is probably the beginning of this mode of thought, and I'd like everyone to try and squash that immediately. There are plenty of ways to have a competitive PNP experience, but the model of GM and Players is not one of them. a competitive experience can't have a GM competing in it. Simply put. This doesn't mean that a game can't support competition, but in my experience this slides a PNP game a little closer to being a board game.

Applying real world knowledge is admittedly a hairy concept, because sometimes it's good. Sometimes it can even be what the GM intends for you to do. What I'm arguing against here is less an action and more a mentality. It can feel really cool to apply real science or know-how to a challenge, OR it can leave everyone groaning as you excitedly try to manipulate a loophole in design. Introspection can be hard, but try to think about your motives: If you're more excited that you know something that can solve a challenge easily than you are about actually solving the challenge, that might be a red flag. If you're excited that you found something that you're sure the GM didn't think of and obviously didn't intend, that's a REAL BIG red flag.

I'm going to put aside, for NOW, the idea of bringing knowledge to the table that your character wouldn't necessarily possess. No, a post on The Information Game is coming very soon because it's one of my blog's big elephants in the room. Past that, whether you know you're doing it or not, trying to outsmart other people is arrogant and creates negative feelings that might fester and become a problem later. You might not even know you caused it. So what do I want you to do? In general, try not to think of gaming as inherently antagonistic, because it's not. Be nice, and understand when a GM says something isn't going to work or when he asks you to roll a skill check even though your action shouldn't "logically" need one. I promise I'll explain more about the whys of my advice in a moment, after we talk a bit to the GMs.

Yeah, get back here. This concerns you too. There's two ways to go about creating a challenge, and one of them is wrong. When you create a challenge in a PNP game, most of the time it's something you are intending the PCs to solve. Regardless of the difficulty. This is, understandably, one of the biggest leaps in logic a GM has to make, so I want you to go back and read that until you understand what I'm saying. If you "stump" the PCs to prove you're a smarter person than they are, your game doesn't go anywhere. It's as simple as that. I mean, I didn't think I had to explain this but I've met many, many people who could really use that advice. I've heard dozens more horror stories as well. To constantly try to "trick" or "outsmart" your players also makes them way less likely to want to play your game. There is a very fine line between designing a challenge within the genre's rules(more on that in a moment) with reasonable solutions and designing a tricksy encounter that's intended to stump or halt the PCs. Building a challenge around real world knowledge is only acceptable when you're giving the PCs a real puzzle to solve(such as a word puzzle or cipher) and even then, you should be prepared to give out hints for things like wisdom checks or Enigmas skills. Any other "real world" checks should have some sort of component of a skill check to them. Imagine a situation where a player must build a car engine: Obviously, this is a situation where someone would make one or several skill checks and the GM would state some sort of time frame. Now imagine I forced the players to describe how to build an engine, step by step, without using real world reference. I am confident that I know nobody who would be able. I know many gamers who know car maintenance and construction, but none who would be able to describe the action while sitting at a gaming table and with absolutely no reference.

Obviously that's an extreme example and something that's shockingly mean to do. However, it's also what you're doing, on a smaller scale. Real world knowledge has its place in PNP games, but as we discussed in "Well Logically", it's not even in the top ten most important things about a pen and paper game. You're wholly dismissing the character's build when doing this, which we discussed before when social skills came up. Seeing as how we've transitioned partially to discussing application of real-world knowledge in games, I'd like to bullet-point some of my tips and reasons.

Your clever little real-world trivia could be wrong. You remember how we were all taught things like Christopher Columbus wanted to prove the world was round, how to properly eat with the food pyramid, how Billy the Kid was ugly, and people in the Wild West thought tomatoes were toxic? Maybe you're thinking of torture devices like the Iron Maiden being built in the middle ages? Yeah, none of those are actually true. People get away with applying junk trivia and pseudoscience because we all have something similar to "fight or flight" in our minds: When we encounter someone saying something in a bold or insistent manner, we choose "Argue" or "Drop it". Often, disruptive cleverness starts by someone hearing something on the internet and ends with their bold assertion not being argued, because we don't have all god damn day.

You're only right because you're running counter to the genre. Yeah, this one happens sometimes too. Sometimes, a desire to prove yourself as smarter or better than the GM leads you to completely forget that he's working within genre conventions to create a special feel to the game. He's hoping you play along, because(presumably) he described the game's feel to you fairly well. Doing things like calling the police in a superhero or vigilante game, like using siege tactics on a band of orcs in a high fantasy hack-and-slash game, or even building your character contrary to obvious expectations can be disruptive and breed negativity. It's not even very clever, exactly: The GM probably thought of that sort of thing, and dismissed it because he expected the group to immerse themselves in the world he created. Building a mage who technically has melee attacks when he asked everyone to build melee characters isn't "clever", it's "acting against the spirit of what he asked you to do".

You're not promoting healthy challenge, you're squashing it. In my high school chemistry class, my teacher openly and repeatedly called my row of seats stupid. We were "the dumb kids". I was struggling with the class already after the first time she did that. What do you think happened? Yeah, I stopped trying. I regret not skipping that class, honestly. I failed it, told nobody about the severe verbal abuse(because this was the 90s, nobody cared) and took the class again next year. Constantly trying to "one-up" everyone in a game or prove you're the most clever will absolutely cause everyone around you to just stop trying. Most people naturally shy away from conflict, so everyone's just going to check out and the game will fizzle if it piles up too high.

Rules and conventions exist for a reason. Sometimes some fact, trick or method is omitted for a reason. In addition to presenting a reasonable world, PNP game rule sets have to worry about a multitude of other things. They have to be reasonably fair, offer the players plenty of choices, and be easy to use. Sometimes a system simply doesn't think to include something, but often when things are omitted, it's for a good reason. Telling the GM you're buying a bunch of unrelated chemicals then informing him that they make C4 when mixed is outside what a lot of systems intend: What they want you to do is to buy C4 like a normal person and deal with the availability rules for it. Exceptions can be made, of course, but this is something you need to work with the GM for and not "spring" on him like you're trying to trick him. After all, nobody would argue if trying to make C4 in your bathtub got you blown the fuck up.

Another week, another long ramble. I sincerely apologize for this post not being as coherent as my others, but there's no editing it. This is a habit everyone's seen but one I have a hard time describing. This is also a really, really fine line: a lot of the time, applying knowledge can feel really cool and accomplishing. At the end of the day, I'm cautioning you against a mentality, and it can be very confusing to discuss. Constantly looking for loopholes instead of sincere solutions to challenges is antagonistic and arrogant. Trying to "pull one over" on a GM is ridiculous(he's presumably putting work in for everyone's enjoyment) and trying to "stump" your players ensures that you're the only one having fun. Players buy skills for a reason, and throwing them out to make a challenge harder is the same thing as making them fist fight you in real life to win combat. Bringing up little "real world" science or psychology tricks can get really tiring. Consider it a bad habit: Use skill checks alongside real knowledge, and try to immerse yourself in the genre and tone the GM is setting. Try not to act solely in self interest, and ask yourself if you're doing something because you want everyone to think you're really smart. You're one of several people trying to enjoy the same activity, and you should take care not to step on someone else's enjoyment.

As a final word, I did leave out one major piece of advice: How to deal with a problem player. There are a multitude of advice sections in GMing guides on this, but I'll be weighing in with my own dumb advice next week. It was going to be in this one, but I've tied a really long rambly tail on this post already.