Thread: Defining IQ
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Old 02-26-2018, 10:58 AM   #5
Sam Baughn
 
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and some other bits.
Default Re: Defining IQ

I'm going to go against the grain and say that actually, I think it's basically a pretty good way to convert a real-world measure into the game attribute.

A few caveats:

GURPS IQ is actual, practical general intelligence, AKA 'g'. Real-world IQ tests are probably not accurate enough to give you more than a rough estimate of that for individuals (for larger groups, they might work better).

The spread of actual intelligence around a given IQ score probably isn't very tight. So someone with an IQ score of 130 could easily have GURPS IQ of 11 or 13 rather than 12, with a realistic chance that they could be 10 or 14 and some possibility they could be outside that range. IQ tests are kind of like estimating people's weight based only on their height; the results will approximate what you are after, but are far from the whole picture.

Any IQ test which claims to measure IQ scores more than about four standard deviations from the norm is probably bunk and really any more than two could be pushing it. So someone with an IQ score of 160 or so could well be the smartest person in the world. Actually, it's probably even worse than that; Richard Feynman only scored 125 in an IQ test, but he might well have been the smartest person in the world.

Willpower seems to be correlated with IQ, but probably not that strongly. Still, GURPS allows Will to vary from IQ, so I don't see that as a huge issue.

Visual and spacial awareness and short reaction times also seem to correlate with IQ (as do cardiovascular fitness, height, income, grip strength and a bunch of other stuff). That implies that linking GURPS IQ and Per isn't completely nonsense, although the connection seems even looser than with Will. However, like Will, GURPS doesn't force you to keep Per at the same level as IQ.

Social abilities are only weakly linked with IQ in the real world. However, many GURPS social skills are not based on IQ and advantages are a major part of the social interaction rules, so I think this is also acceptable.

There probably are some things that boost or lower your IQ score that GURPS classes as advantages and disadvantages rather than the attribute. Things like Single Minded and Mathematical Ability would probably give you a higher score than your actual general intelligence, for example.

Overall, I think the problems with this approach are small and the results will be good enough for what you are likely to want (i.e. having a rough grasp of what a given score in the game would be like in real life).

Exactly how many standard deviations to each level of the attribute is a bit of a question. I think that 1 to 1 is close enough. As someone who generally scores about two and a half SD above the norm, I don't feel like any kind of genius and would be quite happy to say my GURPS IQ is 12 at best (and I wouldn't be outraged if someone told me it was 10). However, I might be one of those people who scores way better in IQ tests than I should based on my real intelligence, so possibly Mr. Stoddard is closer to the mark and most people with my IQ score should be represented with GURPS IQ of 13-14. On the other hand, in GURPS IQ 8 is really low and people with real-world IQ scores of around 80 are likely to be noticeably dim but not nearly as hopeless as that would suggest.
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