Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl
My point is the gods are beyond human attributes, they are defined by their passions, and no human can hope to compete with them except through exploiting their passions. Any god will win a contest of anything against a human, whether they are Athena or Zeus, because they have probabily altering powers as well as having superhuman attributes. Their attributes really only matter when compared to other deities because humans are not a challenge.
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That still doesn't show that they have superhuman intelligence, let alone superhuman GURPS IQ. I don't see how we can judge that, except through narratives about them, which don't show them as being that much smarter than humans are. With exceptions, of course, such as Athena (the goddess of WISDOM), Odin (the god of WISDOM, magic, and war), Prometheus (the titan who embodies FORETHOUGHT), Thoth (the god of KNOWLEDGE), and some others like them. Their divine remits have to do with being smart; gods with other remits don't seem have that quality.
This argument of Aphrodite really being incredibly smart, but having it concealed by her always being in the grip of lecherousness, sounds like the White Knight's song:
But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one's whiskers green
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen
Besides, the argument that a failed Lecherousness roll would result in unintelligent behavior doesn't necessarily follow. A smart person who is filled with sexual passion is likely to approach the matter differently than a dim one. Maybe they'll write Petrarchean sonnet cycles, or come up with elaborate philosophical rationalizations for free love, or make a close study of human sexual behavior, or go out to earn a fortune and become a desirable mate, depending on what they're smart about. They have a range of options for seeking gratification that a less smart person doesn't have, and there's no reason to suppose they wouldn't use them. And similarly, a smart murderously violent person would not use such crude methods as a dim one. Nothing in the GURPS definitions of those traits forbids a person acting on the basis of a failed self-control roll to use their IQ and skills to come up with methods that are actually likely to work!