Need Help Rigorously Stat-ing Myself

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Plane

For someone to have an IQ of 10-11 but function as if they were 14-15 when assessed in an IQ test

Please note that NOWHERE in GURPS is the equivalence "GURPS IQ = (IQ test score)/10" made. Having IQ 135-150 on tests doesn't translate into a game stat of 13.5-15 in any sense.

[ericthered]

A long time ago I decided to pretend that the average score for DX and IQ is 10.5, not 10. Its makes statting NPC's easier, and it makes statting "real people" easier. My process:


Take their weight, assign a build type (skinny, average, overweight, fat, or very fat), and do a reverse lookup on the Build Table to find their ST. Note that a heavy built man with minimal fat should be considered "average".



For DX, ask if they are athletic or not. If they're athletic, give them an 11, if not, give them a 10. If they are consistently the least athletic in a room of 20 or so, give them a 9. If they are consistently the most athletic in a room of 20, give them a 12.



For IQ, ask if they're bright, well-spoken, and mentally well-rounded sort of person. If they are, give them an 11. If they're not, give them a 10. 9's and 12's are less common with IQ than DX, but they do happen. Remember IQ covers talking, academics and hands-on craftsmanship.



HT is harder to assign, but I generally give people a 10 unless they've shown exceptional resilience or vulnerability to bodily ailments. Most of the time you should use the Fit continuum instead. If they've shown out of the ordinary HT, change it to 9 or 11.



Most people should be built with a talent of some sort. Ask if a person is more NATURALLY talented at something than almost everyone they meet in a random room of 20 people, and given them talent to raise that interest plus attribute to 11 or 12. Very exceptional talent may raise things up to 13.



For perception and will, they are narrow enough concepts that using the same method we used for DX will work out just fine.



This method has the following advantages:

• It produces very similar results when its run by different people
• It distinguishes between individuals
• It avoids fine-grained quibbling
• It avoids labeling people as "clumbsy" or "dumb" unless there is a strong argument to be made. Instead it labels them as "not bright" or "not athletic". This is very useful when statting people who can provide feedback.
• It more closely represents typical campaign NPC stats (all 10s plus a few bonuses) than actually sticking the average at 10.

This is not the one true way, but if you want numbers that aren't inflated, match the point costs of the minor NPC's you're already using*, and distinguish between individuals, its a great way to go.



* yes, I know that depends on style. But from what I've seen, its a common style.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

ST: I agree, ST is the easiest to stat, but.... I tried doing my own, but ended up with conflicting numbers for different aspects. I had to compromise even on ST.

My suggestion is to make Lifting ST, Striking ST, and Arm ST mundane and treat them as different strengths in different muscle groups or types of muscle use.

[AlexanderHowl]

The problem with using Talents to represent intelligence is that they are rarely as efficient as Attributes. For example, Mathematical Talent is arguably worse than the combination of IQ+1, Per-1, and Will-1.

[newton]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The problem with using Talents to represent intelligence is that they are rarely as efficient as Attributes. For example, Mathematical Talent is arguably worse than the combination of IQ+1, Per-1, and Will-1.

yeah but like you don’t have to worry about that for an npc

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by newton

yeah but like you don’t have to worry about that for an npc

I generally make NPCs for my games much like I make PCs, maximum efficiency for their points. If I need to reduce their effectiveness in a certain area, I will give them negative traits.

For example, I would give IQ 14 NPCs who could not play musical instruments Incompetence (Musical Instruments). If they were not perceptive or strong willed, I would also give them Per-4 and Will-4. If they were also scatter-brained and socially inept, I would give them Absent-Minded and Clueless. The NPC is still potentially capable in many fields, from Anthropology to Ventriloquism, but they have many weakness (and their total intellectual package would most only 14 CP).

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by ericthered

HT is harder to assign, but I generally give people a 10 unless they've shown exceptional resilience or vulnerability to bodily ailments. Most of the time you should use the Fit continuum instead. If they've shown out of the ordinary HT, change it to 9 or 11.

This is the only part I doubt.

I believe that HT varies more than either DX or IQ in real life. Whereas I'm easily sold on 9-11 for DX and IQ, but only with a lot of convincing on an 8 or a 12, I think the 7-13 range is routine for HT, and I could accept a 6 or a 14. Very Unfit, Unfit, Fit, and Very Fit don't really cover it, as they come with FP-related effects that don't always map well. There are people out there who eat junk food, smoke, drink like fish, use drugs, get in fights, etc. and yet live long and don't get sick . . . I've met many of these "Keith Richards" types, who seem phenomenally resistant to poison, disease, and aging, and recover absurdly quickly from injury, which are all HT in GURPS. Yet most have the opposite of good cardio fitness.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The problem with using Talents to represent intelligence is that they are rarely as efficient as Attributes. For example, Mathematical Talent is arguably worse than the combination of IQ+1, Per-1, and Will-1.

Point-cost efficiency is just an artifact of a game system that's designed to be a "close enough is good enough" model for fictional characters in adventure genres, and that isn't intended to be any kind of reality simulator. In particular, point-cost efficiency isn't equivalent to conservation of effort, evolutionary efficiency, or anything else in the real world. Minimizing the GURPS point cost of the attributes, Talents, and skills needed to get certain target scores on a GURPS character sheet isn't something sought by real people bent on self-improvement or something favored by nature; it's something desired by GURPS players. If you're hammering the square peg of GURPS into the round hole of a reality simulation, efficiency is one of the first things you have to drop.

Put another way, fiction seems full of polymaths who have ungodly DX and IQ, and who seem to be experts at whatever skill is needed to resolve the plot of the week (watching The Blacklist recently, I started to wonder if there are any skills Red doesn't have at the "I can at least try this" level). So the game models people like that. But the real world is full of people with things like IQ 9 and five, six, or more IQ/A or IQ/H job skills at IQ+3, even though that isn't efficient, and loads of people who have arrays like IQ 10 [0], Talent 1 [10] rather than IQ 11 [20], Will 10 [-5], Per 10 [-5], even though the latter would be "better" in most cases . . . though I hasten to add that I tried to make Talent more attractive with some substantial alternative benefits in Power-Ups 3.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Kromm

If you're hammering the square peg of GURPS into the round hole of a reality simulation, efficiency is one of the first things you have to drop.

Or to put it another way -- even if you like GURPS as a reality simulator, the character point cost is not part of the reality-simulating mechanics. It's at a meta level of character creation, and doesn't affect the mechanical functioning of the various game subsystems. There's nothing in the rules that says evolution acts to minimize the CP cost of a given ability, or that CP cost is a measure of real-world fitness so that evolution acts to maximize the benefit organisms get from their fixed CP allotments. "Cost" does not have to align with "simulated setting effectiveness" from the reality-simulating point of view, because that cost isn't visible to the mechanics.

That equivalence is only important in the gamist, utilitarian munchkin point of view (and we as gamers all have some of that): I have X CP to spend on my game character, and I'm gonna get the most game-problem-dominating effectiveness I can for that budget (no matter what concept that winds up being). The forum debates about cost for "utility" and how the CP cost for various advantages vary in different settings all belong to this category. The motivation there is to try to get players to build setting- and game-appropriate characters by making that the easy, high-CP-value approach, so that the desired game world evolves from the meta rules without depending on the players to build to a shared concept -- or feel cheated if they do so and thus wind up being less effective and out-shone in the spotlight time than the munchkin at the table. But notice that's all operating still at that meta-game level, and has nothing to do with how the game mechanics in the world are actually functioning.

(That's another big source of forum debate, but a distinct one: how do I tweak various rules so that the reality-simulating, internal part of the game actually produces results that turn out to be "real" as far as this fantastic setting defines it?)

[Kromm]

Certainly, if you ignore point costs altogether and assign whatever traits make sense, it's much easier to simulate reality. Indeed, it's easier to describe any character from outside the game, be it from reality, a work of fiction (film, novel, etc.), or your imagination. Character points nearly always hinder and just about never help with that.

In fact, even if you ignore points, I don't think predefined traits (IQ, Combat Reflexes, Megalomania, Lockpicking, Flying Jump Kick, etc.) help in many cases. What I think does help is the language use to describe traits; that is, talking in terms of bonuses, penalties, dice rolls, damage, DR, etc.

All this is why I don't stick point costs on monsters in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, and often just make up their abilities wholesale.

[Tenex]

Originally Posted by Kromm

But the real world is full of people with things like IQ 9 and five, six, or more IQ/A or IQ/H job skills at IQ+3, even though that isn't efficient,

To me, this is where the conversion of real people to GURPS breaks down. If in real life someone has a DX based skill that can be determined within GURPS as being skill level X, but their DX is clearly X-10 and there's no way they put in enough hours learning the skill to be DX+10, what now? It seems the answer is real life doesn't convert.

But many people, including me, keep trying to make the conversions work. Something about suspension of disbelief requiring at least some touchpoints with reality. I would like it if real world people could see where they stack up in the game in a reasonable way.