03-15-2016, 10:45 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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An honest discussion about IQ in GURPS
I am curious about why there is a rather sustained rejection of the existence of high IQ in the GURPS forum. While I agree that an IQ above 14 would be quite uncommon, probably around 1% of the population, there are significant numbers of people that appear to have an IQ between 12 and 14, at least 5% of the population by my estimate. I just wonder why there seems to be a rejection of the suitability of such people for PCs and NPCs, especially since a number of GURPS templates have IQ levels in that range?
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03-15-2016, 11:18 PM | #2 | |
Join Date: Dec 2004
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Re: An honest discussion about IQ in GURPS
Quote:
As for templates - part of it is that adventurers by definition are exceptional. Part of it is that many of the fictional characters the templates are trying to emulate show exceptionally broad and deep mental abilities. A fairly realistic real world hacker might have an IQ 11 and a couple levels of Talent with high skill just in the area of computers. An adventurer will typically have a high IQ overall and be exceptional at a wide range of mental abilities. GURPS Action has a good section on exactly what a high IQ means. John McClain from Die Hard may not seem like a brainiac but he is able to unravel elaborate conspiracies all on his lonesome while entire corporations and agencies fail. Remember, most templates run 250 points and up - that's basically starting at a fairly cinematic level. |
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03-16-2016, 12:19 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: An honest discussion about IQ in GURPS
How are you estimating the numbers? Yes, we know the statistical distribution of IQ scores in the real world—a normal curve with mean 100 and standard deviation (usually) 15. But there's no reason to suppose that the GURPS stat called IQ is normally distributed, or indeed to assume anything about its distribution.
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03-16-2016, 12:26 AM | #4 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: An honest discussion about IQ in GURPS
Gurps IQ is NOT the real world vaguely defined IQ from IQ tests.
It is everything mental not relating to body coordination.
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03-16-2016, 01:56 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: UK
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Re: An honest discussion about IQ in GURPS
GURPS IQ is ridiculously broad. It's as if a game had stats for Reasoning, Empathy, Creativity, Perception, Willpower, and maybe others, and then all physical stats (GURPS-style ST, HT, and DX) were rolled into a single "Physique" stat.
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03-16-2016, 02:08 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
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Re: An honest discussion about IQ in GURPS
This is not really a rejection of very high IQ characters. High IQ characters are fun ... in cinematic or nearly cinematic adventure.
But as it has been said above, the problem comes from the broadness of IQ when you want realistic characters. An IQ 18 character, for instance, could be considered as the brightest people on the Earth and, then, some players could say that he is realistic – as soon as there are not dozens of characters like him in the game world; it would just be the unique brightest ever in the world, and he should exist somewhere. But, in GURPS, an IQ 18 character has got almost all mental skills at level 12 to 14 just by default! The guy contents himself with watching some TV series, documentaries, a couple of guys working here or there and shazam! He can compete with professionals or even experts in Accounting, Acting, Administration, Animal Handling, Anthropology, Archeology, Architecture, every Area Knowledge around the world, all Armoury specialties, all Artillery specialties, all Artist specialties, Astronomy, and so on (note that I just copied skills with the letter A from the Basic Set. Dozens more skills are following) ... He is not just the guy with the highest IQ test results in the world, he is Jarod in The Pretender TV series, Walter O’Brien in the Scorpion TV series, or Walter Bishop in the Fringe TV series. These characters know almost everything about everything and constantly tell to experts how wrong they are, no matter the subject. Are these guys realistic? No. Are they fun to play? Yes. As soon as the game world is not supposed to be more realistic than these TV series. GURPS may be one of the most realistic role playing system, it is not only designed to play realistic adventures. It is also designed to play fictional and cinematic heroes, with the same rules. To design one of the three previous character, or Sherlock Holmes, or any other universal genius like that, just take a very high IQ level. You will save a lot of character points because you won’t have to take a lot of skills: you already know most of them at level 12 to 14. But if you want a realistic character, that is another problem. Such guys just don’t exist. Geniuses do exist. Amazing ones even do exist: Einstein, Tesla, Da Vinci ... But they were not geniuses in a so broad range of skills. Realistic geniuses are geniuses in one field, maybe two or even three. But not in all. And, in GURPS terms, it is best simulated with Talents. IQ 14 and Mathematical Ability +4 best suit for a realistic version of Einstein than IQ 18 for instance. Note that it is not really cost effective. Realistic geniuses usually cost more character points than unrealistic ones (especially when their field of knowledge quite very wide). Also note that it is not only a problem with IQ. The same problem arises with DX. DX 18 is good for Lara Croft, who can take any weapon, vehicle, mount, do any kind of acrobatics, climbing, swimming, and so on ... She is fun to play too and can easily be created in GURPS with a very high DX. All physical skills at level 12 or better. But if you want a more realistic character, you won't do that or it will inevitably break your suspension of disbelief. Edit Last edited by Gollum; 03-16-2016 at 07:17 AM. |
03-16-2016, 07:25 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Luxembourg
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Re: An honest discussion about IQ in GURPS
I think Gollum perfectly resumed everything.
None of the High IQ Gurps template published (for 4e) represent mundane, non-heroic, real earth, realistic, non-point-optimized character build. If you want such a character, cap IQ somewhere between 13 to 15 and build genius with talents and hyper-spec perks. And even then, some historical characters like Leibnitz, da Vinci, ... may legitimately deserve to go a few IQ point above a 'realistic' cap... In the right games ( admittedly, most of those I GM), I have no problem with high IQ characters, although I do raise IQ price (IQ! Cost 20, IQ including per and will 30). Celjabba |
03-16-2016, 07:40 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Feb 2009
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Re: An honest discussion about IQ in GURPS
I have no issues with high IQ, I want to see 18+ IQ wizards and Gadgeteers alongside high DX ninja and high ST fighters etc
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03-16-2016, 07:57 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: An honest discussion about IQ in GURPS
I think that Einstein would be best represented by IQ 16 and Mathematical Ability 4, but he represents an outlier. In general, I have found that PCs tend to balance high IQ characters with large numbers of mental disadvantages, an average on -10 points per level of IQ, which seems to represent the psychological fragility of most high IQ people in real life. I think that an IQ 16 PC could be quite realistic as long as they had -60 points of mental disadvantages to give them a reason not to be to successful to be an adventurer. For example, a traditional academic might have Absent-Minded, Clueless, Compulsive Behavior (Lecturing), Curious, Overconfidence, Pacifism, and Xenophilia.
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03-16-2016, 09:22 AM | #10 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: An honest discussion about IQ in GURPS
If you run with Professional=12, then high IQ causes problems by allowing for amazing defaults. But Professional=12 doesn't actually make any sense when one tries to map it to real world situations, so yeah, I think allowing higher IQs is perfectly realistic. And it is worth noting that there very much are people who can get slotted into pretty much any not-highly-technical job (where one would expect the standard skill level to be well above 12) and do very well from the get-go.
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