Quote:
Originally Posted by Vynticator
Having read quite a few threads about real world stats, I find myself a bit puzzled by what seems to be the prevailing wind in Stats theory on these forums.
GURPS Raw have human stats up to 20, but ST can go higher in an unspecified manner. But on the forums, it seems as if even conceiving of a character with a stat higher than 14, 15 at a push, is a step into super-munchkin world.
|
That's because the scale for attributes is not an arbitrary scale like the Mohs scale for hardness, but corresponds to concrete abilities in a definite way. In particular, the system of default skills means that performance in untrained skills depends on an attribute alone, so you can tell about a character's attribute by his or her performance in things he never trained at. Or conversely, you can tell that an IQ or a DX of X would imply that the characer was capable of such-and-such.
It so happens that a
GURPS character with an IQ of 16 is professionally competent (skill-12) at skills that he or she has merely read about or seen actors enacting on TV. A
GURPS character with an IQ of 20 is a
master of skills he or she has never tried before. Not just a couple. All IQ-based skills, and there are a lot of them, very diverse, too.
A GURPS character with IQ 20 is a
master diplomat, tactician, surgeon, physician, lawyer, historian, geographer, geologist, oceanographer, ecologist, botanist, zoologist, anthropologist, sociologist, economist, mathematician, programmer, physicist, chemist, musician, composer, soldier, accountant, actor, administrator, architect, armourer, artist (in every medium), engineer, carpenter, cartographer, cook, disguise artist, farmer, leader, linguist, locksmith
and everything else, including stealth and camouflage, shadowing, every hobby skill, every professional skill, every expert skill, every specialisation. he or she is as good as an expert specialist in all of those. He or she also has an iron willpower, the hearing of a watchdog, the eyesight of an eagle….
There are characters in stories like that, such as Doc Savage. But when we are describing historical characters we don't find many of whom the description implied by a
GURPS IQ over 15 is accurate.