(03-05-2015, 10:58 AM)Gaspard and K'nahli Wrote: things (i couldn't get the quotes to work right)
you need only read a good book or watch a good TV series with intelligent characters in it to see the divide between many of the intelligent characters found in fiction and the characters played by roleplayers that im criticizing. crime fiction, in particular british crime fiction (poirot, sherlock holmes, miss marple whatever), typically does a good job of presenting characters that are clever without resorting to them spouting meaningless technobabble or having their intellect shown by simply telling other characters "I AM VERY SMART".
this, in a way, goes back to the show don't tell thing everyone learns (or should have learnt) in english class. i need more than "this character is very smart" for me to accept that they are, in fact, very smart. they should do something within the story that proves it. say something insightful, come up with a master plan, solve a complex puzzle, bring up their wide general knowledge (or specialist knowledge if they're an expert in a particular field) in a situation where that knowledge is relevant, helpful and solves a genuine problem. that is how i can truly tell if a character is intelligent or not.
in cases where a player is really struggling with their character doing intelligent things, i would have to ask a few questions, chief among them:
"is intelligence vital to the character's concept or story, or is it another embellishment intended to make them better in comparison to others?"
if the player's motivation is to beat other characters or to live out their fantasies of being someone who isn't stupid, they'd probably just be better off not making intelligence one of their character's defining traits. if their character concept needs the character to be intelligent but the player just can't play that convincingly for whatever reason, it's up to the player to do some homework, or to negotiate with other players to set up situations where their character's intellect shines. if you can provide insight that could benefit that player's writing (maybe you know about the thing their character's meant to know about), you might be able to give that player some helpful hints. or you can just reprimand them. if a problem can be easily fixed, i see no good reason to accept that problem existing.
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