That's an interesting point Jeff.  I'd rather sit down and play a game with someone who wasn't super smart, as long as they were nice and I enjoyed their company.  Personality is more important than intelligence -- especially if it's a non-competitive game!

Interesting fact:

I don´t have fun making up D&D characters anymore. Thusly I seek out classes that I can just take twenty levels in, like Cleric or Warblade.

We had some one shots recently, where we made Nth level characters, "try out the build you have been dreaming of!"
It was a chore and a yawn.

Now incrementally building a character is still fun for me. I can browse through feats and spells and maneuvres on the train or the loo for some minutes between sessions.

But a real progression-plan?

I don´t care anymore, it´s tedious and unrewarding to me.

Now, magic item shopping is still absolutely awesome!

Quote from: JamesVYes, it doesn't take a genius to meaningfully participate, but it does take a some smarts and a pinch of extroversion.

Agreed. Thanks for expressing it better than I did. The one overwhelming common factor in my current group is that they all are extroverts. Our education levels vary, but from the highest to the lowest we all can talk. Converse.

Quote from: Kyle AaronOh for fuck's sakes. You guys really are retarded sometimes. This is a discussion board. Are you here to have a discussion, or not? If you just want to pick nits, go make love to a gorilla.

:rolleyes: And you are never guilty of picking nits or stirring the shit pot when it suits your purposes, right?  Give me break, mate.

Quote from: Kyle AaronIt's a really fucking simple question. It's in the title and everything. "Should we need brains to play rpgs?" Should we design them for retards and dull and boring people?

Thanks for the clarification of the question, Kyle.  To be frank, I think that your propensity to stir shit in the interest of "starting discussion" is not very productive.  Maybe you should have just asked the question without all the baggage.

To answer your question, I don't think that mainstream RPG design should be intentionally dumbed down, but I do think that it should be simplified.  The average person can learn the ins and outs of complex systems like D&D 3.5, but the design *does* set up barriers to that.  I think that it was a deliberate design decision in order to please the grognard crowd and build in "buy in" factor (if the system is simple, then why buy tons of add-on books?).  In the short term it makes business sense to keep the current crop of players happy and hooked on the "game with a game", but in the long term I suspect that it has hampered the growth of new players.

So does it take smarts to enjoy RPGs?  Not particularly, but it helps.  As has already been pointed out it helps a lot more to not be a social jerkoff.  I'll take a player of average intelligence and good disposition over a genius asshole anyday.  How about you?


TGA

Quote from: Kyle AaronThat fucking genius Shamus Young was talking about this sort of stuff a while back, the way you guys post.

Get off your high-horse mate. You started the thread with a misrepresentation and then wanted to discuss it. If cals thread had nothing to do with it, then don't fucking bring it up. As pointed out before though, whichever way you look at it, the answer is yes. Some brains are useful, but not mandatory, to have a good game. Well, i'll leave it to you and calithena to sort out.

I find the title and some of the posts to be rather offensive. This whole rant about "needing brains" and "retards" smalls disturbingly of elitism.

Yes, I elitely pretend to be an elven princess. Really. I'm so special.

I am superior to Sosthenes and One Horse Town because I am not a pedantic nitpicker. I am certainly not superior to them because of the way I roleplay or the company I keep.

It's a social creative hobby. Surely requiring that people have some personality and brains is no worse than expecting footballers to be fit and agile?

Hee. You're not a pedantic nit-picker?  I think you've forgotten all the hundred page plus threads you engaged in on RPGnet arguing about theory. But hey, i'm happy to have nit-picked this one...and may it be my last!

Quote from: Kyle AaronIt's a social creative hobby. Surely requiring that people have some personality and brains is no worse than expecting footballers to be fit and agile?

Professionals maybe, but when my friends and I play being fat and slow is no bar to being allowed in the game.  

I'm reasonably intelligent, I guess. I graduated uni with top honors, I've done archaeology on two continents, I've written novels and made short films. I'm not afraid to think, but if I have a choice between a simple game and a complex game, I'll take the simple one every time.

That said- define intelligence, please, because, truthfully, I don't really know what it is, and I don't really think anyone else does either.

Quote from: Kyle AaronIt's a social creative hobby. Surely requiring that people have some personality and brains is no worse than expecting footballers to be fit and agile?

Every one has personality and brains. I think the terminology is quite important here. Being willing to be personable and use the brain is the important aspect. Sorry to be that nitpicky...

Answering the OP's question without reference to Calithena's original intent:

Of course we need brains to play RPGs! We are not talking Nobel Prize physics here, but every human function has some minimum point of entry and games are no exception. This is not elitism at all -- I don't expect my three year old to play D&D, but he might be able to swing a game of tic-tac-toe. On the other hand, if my 8 & 10 year olds weren't able to understand D&D, I would be concerned.

Every RPG system and campaign has different types of challenges. There are tactical challenges, social challenges, imaginative challenges... and so on. I don't expect that all of my players will be good at all of the types of challenges, or even good at ANY of them. Fortunately, most RPGs are cooperative games and at any given time, someone steps up and takes control of the situation and either meets the challenge, or helps others meet the challenge.

This question is frankly, a no-brainer

Another post in the spirit of answering Kyle's question as opposed to addressing Calithena's original point:

Yes, you do need brains, but you also need to let people have an off-day once in a while. Sometimes people are tired from work or other commitments, but swing by the weekly game anyway because they're keen about it and don't want to disappoint you. It's bad form to kick them in the teeth just because they're not at their best.

I don't want my game to be a bout "builds" and "optimization".  I want my game to be about "adventure" and "pantslessness".

There, that's a fine answer.  Oughtta have that cross-stitched.

In exactly that order, Doc?

There's a difference between being intelligent and imaginative on one hand, and enjoying number-crunching and optimization on the other.

The guys I play with are smart and they have active imaginations. But they do not read RPG books. They consider learning rules to be a chore. They couldn't be arsed to mini-max beyond the most obvious choices.

We play RPGs to share an imaginary adventure, roll some dice, and drink some beer. When we want to give the analytical parts of our minds a work-out, we play euros.

So to go back to Calithena's original point, I agree with his observation that catering to the crunch-heavy hardcore gamer segment of the hobby has left lots of people who don't like sort of approach out in the cold. I like to think when I play, but not about numbers and statistically optimal combos.