View Single Post
Old 05-16-2013, 09:02 PM   #49
Peter Knutsen
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
Default Re: Alternate Talent pricing for math heads

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
Intelligence has a lot of sub-Attributes, and like all the ones above, they always pertain to a function, to the potential for a function (doing general thing X, or understanding objective phenoemon Y), rather than to some more or less arbitrary category (Plants):

Interpersonal-, Linguistic-, Logical-, Mnemonic-, Musical-, Mystical-, Spatial Intelligence, and also Thinking Speed.
The last can be useful in differentiating characters:

Imagine a genius scientist. Intelligence 6 (that's typical of university professors). But he's not very perceptive, at Perception 4 (merely above aveage), and he's "quite Casual" (Casual Intelligence 4, Casual Perception 2).

Since the player creating him wanted to save a few points, and didn't have adventuring in mind, he opted to dump Lingustic Intelligence by 3, and also Thinking Speed by 3 (since TS doesn't affect how fast you do science, but only how quickly you "think on your feet").

This guy isn't particularly resistant against cons and swindlers (e.g. someone trying to get him to say certain specific words, so they can be recorded to fool a voice ID machine, as in the movie "Sneakers") and his Casual Perception is only slightly better than that of an average Human (who has Perception 3, Casual 1). His linguistic Intelligence of 3 matches that of an average person, but motivationally he's very unlikely to bother to learn foreign Langauges since it's much faster for him to learn skills not dependent on Linguistic Intelligence (such as science skills), and this character motivation is matched 1:1 by player motivation due to Skill Point costs (science skills cost less than Language skills).

His merely average Thinking Speed also impacts his Reflexes derived stat, and his ability to use skills such as Bluff (social) and Feint (combat).

Now imagine a bright spy. He's not as bright as the scientist, at a mere Intelligence 5 (he can only barely qualify for Mensa), but he's perceptive too at 5, and he's natively bright and perceptive, increasing both Casual Intelligence and Perception by 1. Furthermore spy training school has made him more perceptive still, but hasn't trained his mind much (it probably would have, if his Intelligence has been lower), so his Casual Perception is 5 and his Casual Intelligence is 4.

His Linguistic Intelligence is unmodified from the parent attribute, so at 5 he finds it fairly easy to learn foreign Languages, even to a high level of proficiency. The Language skills themselves, representing vocabulary size and grammar, are based mainly on Linguistic Intelligence (with a bit of Will - let's assume both guys are Will 4, here), while the tiered binary skills to represent pronounciation are influenced in part by Linguistic Intelligence and in part by Vocal Control. Assuming this spy is slightly gifted in terms of Vocal Control, at 4, he'll find it easy to achieve Fluency in foreign languages, so that he can pass as a native (for added fun, we could make the scientist partially Colour Blind, to muck up his potential for learning the Disguies skill!).

And it it particularly typical of individuals with high Thinking Speed to gravitate towards (field) espionage and other adventurer-like professions, so it's reaonable to make the spy guy Thinking Speed 6 (a +1 relative to the parent Attribute). His Reflexes are likely to be very good, meaning he'll probably get to act first in most combat Rounds, and combined with a good intellect he'll be able to easily learn skills such as Bluff (or Feint).

I know which of those two I'd rather have with me in a lab. And which one I'd rather be adventuring with (or send adventuring without me going along).

And both are 100% understandable and analyzable from an in-character in-world point of view, since they don't have bizarre metagame object-category-based traits such as Green Thumb or Animal Friend.

(If you want to make an expert gardener in Sagatafl, you want to buy up Colour Vision - that's why he's good with plants; other characters can understand that, and if they can deduce that he's good at discerning between colours then they can use that as a basis for further assumptions. And there's no way to optimize for animal skills in particular. Sagatafl actually had Animal Intelligence once upon a time, but I dumped that sub-Attribute exactly because it failed the criteria, because ti was too much like a stupid metagame GURPS Talent. If you want to optimize your character as an animal trainer, you raise Intelligence, Perception and Will, maybe a little bit of Charisma too, and that will optimize you for a wide range of Skills).
Peter Knutsen is offline   Reply With Quote