Help: Mundane Realistic Advantages

[Luther]

Here are some mundane Advantages which I do not allow to regular humans, either because I feel they are cinematic (some of them are explicitly labeled) or not realistic. I'd like to hear if you think some of the following Traits are valid and why. Thanks.

3D Spatial Sense
Absolute Direction
Absolute Timing
Chronolocation
Cultural Adaptability
Cybernetics
Double-Jointed
Enhanced Defenses
Extra Attack
Gadgeteer
Gunslinger
Immunity to X
Intuitive Mathematician
Longevity
Perfect Balance
Peripheral Vision
Plant Empathy
Rapier Wit
Shtick
Size Modifier
Social Chameleon
Trained By A Master
Very Rapid Healing
Weapon Master
Xeno-Adaptability

[Kromm]

Of the traits on your list, I'd consider these realistic on the basis of having met someone with the trait or having read significant, verifiable accounts of the existence of someone with the trait:

3D Spatial Sense: Many real-life fighter pilots appear to have this trait.

Absolute Timing: Although it primarily occurs among autistics, this trait is documented, if rare.

Longevity: I have had very elderly relatives who either had this trait or about HT 20. You decide.

Size Modifier: Obviously, genetic dwarfs and giants do exist.

[Tech13]

Originally Posted by Luther

Chronolocation
Xeno-Adaptability

Originally Posted by Kromm

Of the traits on your list, I'd consider these realistic on the basis of having met someone with the trait or having read significant, verifiable accounts of the existence of someone with the trait:

Boy, i need to get out more.

Can't wait to hear the story for that person Kromm knows of or read about with Chronolocation :-)

[roguebfl]

Tech read agian Kromm listed 4 thins form the list...he did not mean the list but these 4 things

[HeroPenguin]

A personal friend of mine actually possesses Absolute Direction, so I think that would have to go on the list of allowable advantages...

Cultural Adaptibility seems as reasonable as Language Talent to me, it's really not much seperated.

Double-Jointed... I don't understand how this wouldn't be reasonable. There's flexibility, and then there's modifing your skeleton to be more flexible, and anyone who's seen a contortionist can attest to the fact that this does exist.

Enhanced Defenses is debateable, but I rather think a level or two in this is certainly possible. Some people who train in martial arts are better at defense than attack, and this is a perfect way to model that.

Intuitive Mathematician, now called Lightning Calculator, is clearly cinematic at second level, but at first level, I think it could be a rare possibility. Some people are just astonishingly good at math...

Longevity... how old was the oldest woman in the world when she died? 120? It doesn't seem unreasonable as an advantage.

I bet some gymnasts have Perfect Balance by now...

My Uncle possesses Peripheral Vision, so that one is definitely real

Size Modifier +1, meet Andre the Giant. Size Modifier-1, meet Mini-Me (I can't remember his name, I'm sorry). Any more than that is unrealistic, but there is definitely some room for size modifier.

Social Chameleon is debateable, only in its form. I would suggest a Talent for savoir-faire, fast-talk, acting, etc. However, this advantage, in some way or another definitely exists.

As for Chronolocation and Xeno-adaptability, these are debateable, mainly because humanity as it is doesn't have the technology to prove whether these actually exist or not. Humans today can't travel through time, and we have never met an alien race... so we really don't know whether a person could intuit how to behave around the aliens, or where exactley they wound up in time. Regardless, unless you want to throw a bunch of truly mundane people into an alien or time-travel campaign, those aren't likely to come up, so it's not terribly relevant.

Everything else I agree with.

[pator2000]

why not gunslinger and intuitive mathmetician? I haven't actually read those descriptions but just from the names it seems reasonable that people could have this. Also what about double jointed? There are such people and there are contortionist types that can fold themselves inside shoeboxes.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Luther

Here are some mundane Advantages which I do not allow to regular humans, either because I feel they are cinematic (some of them are explicitly labeled) or not realistic. I'd like to hear if you think some of the following Traits are valid and why. Thanks.

Longevity
Perfect Balance

Back when I was doing characters for GURPS Who's Who (my introduction to GURPS writing), I pretty much had to give Elizabeth I Longevity to make sense of the age she reached, given the abysmal health care of the era.

Given Longevity, you will fail one aging roll in 54. So it takes an average of 540 aging rolls to reduce any one characteristic from 10 to 0. Your life expectancy is 540 aging rolls; your death probability from aging is 1/540. So, given that you have four characteristics, your survival probability per aging phase is (539/540)^4, and your life expectancy is just over 135 aging rolls. That comes to 11 years 3 months; if you start aging at 50, you make it to your early sixties—that's WITH longevity. If you throw in all characteristics being above normal, you can last longer.

Perfect Balance seems a pretty good fit to some of the hair-raising things Chinese acrobats are reported to do.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by Luther

Here are some mundane Advantages which I do not allow to regular humans, either because I feel they are cinematic (some of them are explicitly labeled) or not realistic. I'd like to hear if you think some of the following Traits are valid and why. Thanks.

Intuitive Mathematician

Gauss makes a fairly decent counter to your argument

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

3D Spatial Sense: Some Pilots seem to have this.

Absolute Direction: Some people seem capable of this, not quite like birds, but something unusual.

Absolute Timing: There's different degrees of this, the people who can do it to the second are extremely rare.

Cultural Adaptability: I've met a couple, spooky.

Cybernetics: Depends on the setting TL, present day has some things which would qualify for sure.

Double-Jointed: What do you consider people who can fit in a duffel bag?
Can spin their handcuffed hands from behind their back over their head, and then purposefully dislocate their thumbs to slip the cuffs off?

Enhanced Defenses/Extra Attack: Some people are very fast.

Gunslinger: Bob Munden. http://www.bob-munden.com/about.htm

Immunity to X: Plenty of people resistant or immune to various poisons and chemicals.

Intuitive Mathematician: I used to do Calculus/DFQS in my head which wouldn't qualify, but I knew people who could do BVPs in their head which I think would qualify...they're all mathematicians.

Longevity: The way the aging rolls are set up, this is needed to explain old folks.

Peripheral Vision: I've known people who could see you from the corner of their eye when you were standing almost behind them. Could be weird eye placement, I didn't measure it...

Rapier Wit: Want to see how quick my comebacks are?
(You're mother is so fat when she sits around the house, she sits around the house.) *grin* This one's effects might be slightly cinematic.

Shtick: Like a perk, somethings which some people just have an uncanny ability to do.

Size Modifier: You haven't met any Dwarfs or genetic Giants?

Trained By A Master/Weapon Master: Some of the skills associated are definitely cinematic, but I knew someone who could put his fore-fingers through tautly held tent-tarp-gingham. If you spend 10+ hours a day, 5+ days a week, doing nothing else, it's amazing what someone with the right potential can accomplish.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by HeroPenguin

Intuitive Mathematician, now called Lightning Calculator, is clearly cinematic at second level, but at first level, I think it could be a rare possibility. Some people are just astonishingly good at math...

There is a story about John von Neumann, one of the 20th century's major mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, and economists. A friend of his came up with the theory that mathematicians and physicists thought about problems differently. He proposed a problem that could be solved by setting up an infinite series and summing up its terms until they became too small to bother with, or could be converted into something you could do by simple arithmetic by reframing the question; he theorized that mathematicians would reframe and physicists would use brute force. So he tried in on von Neumann. Von Neumann listened to the problem, looked away for a few seconds, and gave the answer. His friend said, "Oh, you found the short cut." Von Neumann said, "There's a short cut?" He had summed up the infinite series, in his head . . .

However, I've read historical studies of real "lightning calculators." It looks as if what they actually have isn't so much speed as memory. One of them was given two sixteen-digit numbers to multiply; he listened, walked away, went about his chores (he was a plantation slave in the old South), and a few days later, read off the answer, perfectly accurate. He had been calculating in his head the whole time, never losing track of digits—but he didn't do it in an instant; his mental processes were only speeded up by not needing to look at a piece of paper or check a previous partial result. You could model that in GURPS as specialized Eidetic Memory.