Gaming philosophy conundra

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

And have done so at least since my freshman maths classes, forty years ago.

Oh, it's a much older debate than that, with mathematicians in the 17th and 18th centuries objecting strongly to the lack of rigor of infinitesimal arguments, rigorizing many of them is one of the things Cauchy is famous for (in 1821).

It's now possible to state most of these things rigorously and still use concepts of infinity and infinitesimals, but sometimes in ways that differ from the way you'd use them intuitively.

[Agemegos]

Right. “These days” in post #117 cam be taken as meaning “any time in the last two hundred years”.

[Daigoro]

I feel like XKCD has been lurking here.

https://xkcd.com/2626/ (published May 30)

[ajardoor]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Does God's omnipotence enable him to make a thousand-sided Platonic solid (a regular chiliahedron)?

Can God create dice so big that even God can not roll them?

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by ajardoor

Can God create dice so big that even God can not roll them?

Not only can God create those dice, God can then proceed to roll them in defiance to the fact that God cannot roll them.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Not only can God create those dice, God can then proceed to roll them in defiance to the fact that God cannot roll them.

That depends on your theology. Thomas Aquinas says that the omnipotence of God does not extend to contradictions.

[Boomerang]

More of a serious question.

When you are the GM how do you manage having a character who is much more intelligent than the corresponding player?

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by Boomerang

More of a serious question.

When you are the GM how do you manage having a character who is much more intelligent than the corresponding player?

Feed them info to reflect it in a way you think helps the game and suits the character, let them "notice" or "realise" things that the player may not have (but don't do it constantly and don't assume the player hasn't noticed it, let them know you're doing it to reflect their character's advantage in that area).

The rest is reflected in their skills when they choose to use them and make rolls.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Boomerang

More of a serious question.

When you are the GM how do you manage having a character who is much more intelligent than the corresponding player?

I always tell such a player to let me know when he's stuck. I also let folks roll their Int/IQ/Reason/etc. checks when something calls for something those with high intelligence would determine/discover/conclude.

That also applies to Perception checks, whatever form that takes in the system.

[Boomerang]

I think those are the standard approaches, which basically boils down to the philosophy of giving the player with the smartest character more information and then let the game mechanics take care of the rest. But does that really bridge the gap between average and genius?

I was hoping since this is a thread about gaming philosophy for some more unusual ideas. For instance the GM adjusts the scenario after the fact to make the clever character seem even smarter. How this might look is that the player looks for a trap in an unusual location, there is no trap according to the GM map, but the GM retcons a trap in that spot so that the player looks clever finding it. Or in reverse, there is a trap there but the player didn’t think to look so the trap is ignored by the GM, unless a different (less intelligent) character happens to wander over it first.

Or players are given more time to make decisions based on how smart their characters are, and they go in reverse order of intelligence. In other words the player with the smartest character gets to see how all the other player decisions pan out and have time to think about it, before they have to commit to their own course of action.