Standard deviation on Stat distribution?

[Victor Maxus]

Originally Posted by Langy

2.5% of humans having a stat of 17 or higher is ludicrous. Actually look at what that means, mechanically speaking. It pretty much makes you near-professionally competent at anything you try at default. That's really unbelievable for 2.5% of the population.

This is another way of looking at the whole putting GURPS in real life. Again, it is nearly impossible to do, given it is a game designed to to play and have fun with realism being a consideration, not a driving force. So, instead of trying to figure how many people out there have a 17 IQ, think what it means to slap a 17 IQ stat on some one.

Let's go with 1 CP being 200 hours of study. Now, let's say 17 IQ goes to college to be a doctor. He spends 4 hours a day in class and and 1 hour a day doing homework and extra study, or only 5 hours of his day (Can still work that job at the local convenience store to pay tuition.) That is 25 hours a week (taking week ends off). That means in 8 weeks time, he can earn 1 CP. That is about 2 CP a semester. After 1 year of college, he has 4 CP. Now, put those in his medical skills, one point in each of the big 4, he has 17 First Aid, 15 Diagnosis, 15 Physician and 14 surgeon... after 1 year. With 12 being the game mechanics default for professional level, Mr. 17 IQ just become a top notch doctor, better than most professionals, and in just 1 year of college. He has 3 years left. He could take physics, chemistry, literature, several histories, business courses, some mechanics and by the end of 4 years of college, be 14 to 17 skill level in 16 different areas. That is pretty good.

Now, what this means for how many 17 IQ people are there in the world, I don't know, probably nothing. But it does let you sit back and ask, "How many people out there did this with their life?" Extremely few, which tells me that 17 IQ is a rare trait indeed. So, before you slap that down on some one, just think, in GURPS terms, what you are saying about a 17 IQ character.

This method does not do a whole lot to explain stat distribution in the real world, but I think it does explain Doogie Howser.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Victor Maxus

each of the big 4, he has 17 First Aid, 15 Diagnosis, 15 Physician and 14 surgeon... after 1 year.

First Aid defaults to Physician. However he probably does want Physiology.

[Mr Frost]

Originally Posted by Langy

Only half-plausible at that. I'm not sure ST17+ is all that common - there was a thread recently that pegged the world recordholder for ST at 18 or thereabouts, with reasonable use of Extra Effort and Lifting skill (while the unreasonable version had the world's strongest person have a ST of 12 or so).

Whilst this is true of people in general , going with Kromms' statement on the topic , 2 1/2 % of extraordinary people {adventurers} is entirely plausable .

[Victor Maxus]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

First Aid defaults to Physician. However he probably does want Physiology.

Yes, you a very correct, I was just trying to make a simple, very simple example of what a 17 IQ person can do. And what you pointed out, using the default rules, then a 17 IQ can be even more dynamic. Which goes back to the original idea, does a 15 IQ person stand out? What does it mean to give some one a high stat?... so on and so on.

[Langy]

Whilst this is true of people in general , going with Kromms' statement on the topic , 2 1/2 % of extraordinary people {adventurers} is entirely plausable .

Sure, that's possible - but it isn't what Jeff Wilson was saying. He was saying 2.5% of all humans have at least one stat at 17+, not just adventurers.

Adventurers are extra-ordinary and have absolutely nothing to do with the Real World. Thus, they tend to have much higher stats than normal humans.

I doubt 2.5% of even adventurers have stats in the 17+ range, though. At least that's something we could study, by taking a large sample of player characters (not including NPCs, because they aren't generally adventurers) and then figuring out the distribution of their stats. It'd be a lot of work, though with little if any real point.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Victor Maxus

Now, let's say 17 IQ goes to college to be a doctor.

IQ is functional intelligence. It includes all of (and more) innate ability, general education, experience and training.

So even if IQ 17 people exist in the real world, they weren't born that way. So a good part of the college education could go into raising IQ from 14 to 17, for example.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by Mr Frost

Whilst this is true of people in general , going with Kromms' statement on the topic , 2 1/2 % of extraordinary people {adventurers} is entirely plausable .

Depends on where you put adventurers. ST 17 is nearly three times as strong in absolute terms as ST 10. To put it another way if you assume ST 10 matches up to a 150 lb bench press, ST 17 is a 430 lb bench press (without specialized training.) That's about the level of DeMarcus Ware. Now in a Dungeon Fantasy type campaign, characters that strong might be 2.5% or more of characters (that's the base for a Barbarian.) However it's certainly not 2.5% of the population.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Kromm

We're using "human" as code for "adventurers with the 0-point human racial template" and "average" to mean "the value everybody gets for free."

So 10 is your average able-bodied adult? More or less how I've interpreted it, if that is so.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

So 10 is your average able-bodied adult? More or less how I've interpreted it, if that is so.

Yep. I've said as much quite often, and in that many words. You arrive at the average of 10 by considering all of humanity down at 6-9 – who likely constitute the majority – and then offsetting their contribution with a good dose of people at 11 up to whatever upper bound you like. In that context, 10 stands out as able, just not impressive. Then you put a cut at 10 and look at only the 11-to-upper bound scores for PCs, who are more-than-able by definition.

Obviously, you can play games where this isn't true. Just give people 25-point PCs and they won't be able to swing ultra-high scores easily. But that's not a common style of gaming. Most of the words on attributes in GURPS are discussing action-adventure games. Note that the latter need not be cinematic . . . a realistic WWII campaign would involve plenty of action and adventure, and most of the PCs would have 10+ in all their stats if they've been put in a line unit and survived so far.