Logic seems like something which more comes from the player, rather than the character. As GM I would never have a player roll to solve a puzzle, I’d design puzzles for the players to solve or else not use puzzles. I wouldn’t have a player roll to come up with a plan; I’d have the players come up with a plan.
There are no Logic-based banes, and only two boons: Animation and Heal. Both have other attributes which fit them just fine.
The description of Logic says:
Characters who are skilled in Logic might be riddle masters, expert programmers, military geniuses, uncanny sleuths, or ingenious trap smiths.
Programmers and trap smiths should have creation.
Sleuths should have learning and perception. Why also have logic?
Players who want to play riddle masters better be ready to solve some riddles.
Military geniuses should practice tactical combat.
So, given all that, I think I’ll simply ignore the Logic attribute and tell my players not to invest points into it.
Is there any issue with doing that which I’m not seeing?
Logic has been used a ton in both the games I have run, and the games I have played in.
I’m in a world, I (the Player) don’t know a lot about this world, or how things work. However, my character might know things about it. Logic roll to see, GM informs me what my Character knows or can figure out about a contraption, trap, or other.
Maybe I want to play as a super smart slueth, but I myself am not very good at it. You just took away my ability to play that character, taking away my player agency.
Here’s the thing, players can already choose to not use an attribute, they aren’t forced to use it, so why take it away?
Open Legend is about self-limitations and restrictions. Not having access to every boon or bane isn’t a big deal, playing your character TO that character is the whole point.
Also, as a GM, if you had 0 Logic and 0 Learning, and you came up with a plan, I would look at you and say “Would your character really be able to figure that out?” and maybe have them roll to see if they would.
Your last paragraph points out EXACTLY why I want to eliminate the stat. That would be more limiting of player agency than removing an extraneous stat.
I could simply call for a learning roll for any remaining legitimate purpose of logic. I also should inform the players of anything their characters would for sure know about the world, and learning makes for more sense to determine any questionable world knowledge.
If a player chooses to not take logic, but the GM expects it, you get the situation you highlight in your last paragraph. If the GM eliminates logic as an option, players can take creation, learning, perception, and ask the GM how they can make their super slueth character.
I’ve used Logic for hacking, for working out things that they had no way of knowing in advance (the key difference from Learning) and for making traps (nothing Extraordinary about a pit full of spikes, so it shouldn’t be based on an Extraordinary attribute). It’s useful for if a player’s character might be able to make a leap of intuition that a player can’t; you don’t have to be strong to play a strong character, so there’s no reason you should have to be smart to play a smart character.
Technically, you are correct. If you want to remove it from your games then there’s nothing to stop you. The attribute is there for players and GMs who can come up with ways to use it.
Hey, I can come up with ways to use the logic stat. I just don’t like the implied limitations of using it.
You don’t have to be strong to play a strong character: true.
The difference is that your strength has no effect on your decision making ability. Your intelligence does.
Thank you for confirming I could remove logic. I mean, I know I can but I wanted to know there’s not some important bit of rules I’m overlooking. While moving all the logic uses into learning isn’t ideal, it just seems like a very weak stat when I’m asking my players to use their own logic.
Of course, it’s absolutely setting dependent. I mostly run sci-fi games, where Logic has become the go-to hacking stat, as well as helping in interactions with robots and ship-repair. It doesn’t really play into decision making at all.
I would advise you not to remove it, or even tell your players that you think it’s worthless. Let them come to their own conclusions, if they can come up with an awesome use for it then you’ll be glad you didn’t just cut it off for them, but if they agree with you that it’s no good then they simply won’t waste points on it to begin with.
It seems like we say this a lot on this forum, but the simple answer to anyone who wants to change anything is: "First try it without changing anything. "
That’s fair, but I’m still concerned about a player taking Logic expecting me to hand them excellent plans, and expecting lower-logic characters to not make good plans. Obviously, this is about player expectations, and I’ll want to check with the players while they’re making their character. But since plan-making is such a huge part of the logic stat, a player who reads the rules is highly likely to have expectations that plans will come from a stat instead of their own mind.
That sounds more like a fundamental misunderstanding of what logic (the concept, not the attribute) is. You can logically determine whether a plan is good, but you can’t logically come up with a plan, that requires creativity (which you’ll note is not an attribute, that’s entirely up to the player).
Have a conversation with your players if you’re still concerned, let them know that you’re not just going to hand them perfect answers because of their logic attribute. I’m sure you won’t have any problems.
The GM will call for a Logic roll when you attempt to decipher a mystery, predict an opponent’s behavior, or devise a foolproof plan.
That’s the part which has me concerned. That said, I’ll try without changing rules, and just redirect player expectations if they focus on the highlighted bit.
So the GM might have them do a Logic roll, and in some cases might end up helping them with some more information that the Player might not be considering that the Character would in devising a plan.
After all, the most brilliant detective can still sometimes slip up. In table top RPG often times a Player has more time to think over something than a Character who is making a split second decision based on their Logic. So the Logic roll, leaving it up to the dice, can help to narrate the story in a more interesting way than what might happen otherwise.
Your character can also use logic to figure out complex mathematics that the player may not be able to do. Calculating a vector on a star-ship or setting up the most the most optimal canon position to give the player an advantage.
It can also be used to give the player hits if they missed something that the characters should have noticed but because of forgetfulness of the PC or if there has been a long time between sessions it can be a tool to help the story forward. Logic can also be used to “create” said complex puzzles or security systems if the PC want to keep something safe.
It seems to me like one of the major points on both sides of this discussion is player vs character knowledge and planning. This becomes a problem when a character is smarter than their player, or vice versa. Here’s the problem; it is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to play a character who is smarter than you. Such a character will make decisions better than their player nearly every time. The only way to accurately portray such an intelligent character? Make a Logic roll every time they make a decision and have the GM tell them what their “character” should do, which means the “player” in this scenario isn’t making decisions for themselves and therefore isn’t playing at all.
I think that one of the better ways to keep mental attributes in the game (OL does a great job of providing active uses for them) and still portray intelligent characters is to abolish this idea that players and characters should be completely separate. After all, despite being experts in their fields, Mario can sometimes miss a jump, Ezio might miss a counter, or the Dragonborn might get murdered by a crab. We are willing to put up with such minor “inconsistencies” because we know that we aren’t legendary heroes or expert assassins, we’re just pretending to be. So keep Logic and Learning in the game, just remember that it is a game and the point is to make decisions for yourself, not ask the dice what you should do.
You definitely shouldn’t be rolling dice for decision making, but I would disagree on your other point. It’s very possible to play a character who is smarter than you are, you just pick your areas. You can spend more time considering what to do than your character has in combat; your alchemist can make a logic roll to mix up a concoction even if you have no chemistry knowledge; your character can hack a computer even if you’ve never written a line of code in your life.
Being more intelligent doesn’t mean making a better decision in every conceivable situation, just your specific specialty. I can absolutely attest to that as I’ve seen people with a PhD in physics break very expensive equipment with silly mistakes.
In short, you can play a smarter character for the same reason that authors can write a smarter character. You don’t have to do it, you just have to say that your character does it.
This is actually what we do most of the time in TTRPG, it is the reason for Dice, the dice tell us what we end up doing (though not what we should do, that part is true). Dice are part of the story telling experience, and a reason to use them, to find out how successful, or unsuccessful you are at attempting something. Not to roll for everything, of course, such as walking (but walking down a gravely cliff face where easy to slip) or reading a book (but reading a book not in your first language to get information out of it quickly).
I mean the same argument can be made for learning, presence, persuasion and deception. If you want to extent that line of thinking to other systems, than DnD could scratch Intelligence, Charisma and Wisdom.
I think you could still use Logic to give your players feedback on their plans or give them hints during puzzles etc. I used Logic quite often during fights to let the PCs figure out if their tactics and methods have been effective against an unknown foe, and if not what they could or should switch up, or to anticipate an enemies strategies to allow them to prepare a strategy against said enemy.
But if you don’t see any uses to Logic, than it’s your prerogative to scrap it from your game at your table.
I see logic as a way to figure things out. For example your characters is standing in front of a locked door. There is a way, somehow, to open the door, and an engineering character might be able to figure that out by looking at the device controlling the door. I as a player wouldn’t ask the GM to describe every little cog and wheel on the device, I would just ask if I can roll a logic check to figure it out.
I do agree that logic should not be used to solve puzzles or make plans, but it is useful to examine things. Take it like the investigation skill in D&D and it makes a lot more sense.
I would probably say this a bit different, perhaps like this:
“I’m in a world, I (the Player) don’t know a lot about this world, or how things work. However, my character might know things about it. A Learning roll will reveal anything my character could have learned through research or study. A logic roll will reveal anything about the world which can be discovered via tinkering / working with the tools at hand.”
So the reason I wouldn’t remove the Logic attribute is that it does NOT represent intelligence, rather it represents how good you are at figuring something out. If you’re in a tomb that has a magical trap which was specially crafted (perhaps the trap itself is an artifact in its own right), a Learning roll (the only attribute that some might try to use as a replacement for Logic) will not help you disarm it because it does not matter how many books you’ve read, this trap has never been documented. This is an example where, I would not allow any attribute besides Logic to accomplish the task of disarming it.
I’ve updated (but not published) the Logic and Learning attributes in the rough overview of them:
Learning - Recall facts about history, arcane magic, the natural world, or any information you picked up from an external source Logic - Innovate a new crafting method, decipher a code, jury-rig a device, get the gist of a language you don’t speak
This is probably being worked on, but given the amount of work that has to be done and the circumstances Brian has been through (see the hangout pinned to the forum if you want more details on either) it may be some time. Please be patient
