Rip/Criticize my character: Angela Copperfield.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I would not say that that's necessarily wrong. Indeed, I've speculated about running a version of GURPS where the highest attribute that gives you a skill default is 16 (so you can have skill-12 for Easy skills and skill-9 for Very Hard ones); anything higher than that implies really crazy levels of broad general competence.

But with that system, your character writeup has no stats higher than 15, and therefore no stats outside the range of natural human variation. Therefore you don't need a special superscience explanation for any of those stats. It's a freakish quirk of probability for someone to have two distinct stats at the human maximum, but freakish quirks of probability do happen in the real world, and it's certainly legitimate to have them as the premise of a narrative. Human beings have hard physical limits on how good they can be at any one thing—no real human being will ever be as strong as an elephant or as fast as a cheetah—but we don't have a budget for how much total random good fortune we can have in our genes. So I wouldn't bother with the elaborate handwavy scientific explanation for why Angela's stats are that high.

And therefore I don't see that having the science fictional origin story adds anything of substance to her narrative, and I don't see why it should be there.

In fact, there seems to be something contradictory about it. On one hand you have her coming from an extraordinary origin, which is classic Myth of the Birth of the Hero stuff; it implies that she really is a kind of demigod or titan, someone who can do things that transcend normal humanity. But on the other hand, you have the story about her being a stage magician, one who's skilled at illusions, which implies that the miracles that attest to her divinity are faked by clever trickery. And also on the other hand, you have her have very high social traits that give her the ability to persuade other people to believe her and to adore her too much to question her, which also implies that her claims to divinity are false, and that her religion is founded on lies. I think those narratives don't work well together, and that's a big reason that I don't see why the character should have all of them.

Are not contradictions the essence of life?

Angela was born from the most stupid character concept that I have been sent for a descriptive application (which was required to contain at least family ties, past experiences and future goals) to join a realistic campaign: "A sorceress". That was all the character some anonymous player wanted to play. That was all she had for her background: She was "a sorceress". And she intended to play a character who was really able to throw magic spells. That person publicly and exultingly discussed that she should be able to play without a backstory... because potato. Of course, this player wasn´t allowed to join. But the inherent fun of such a simple concept was funfully discussed for days, and from there started a discussion about what kind of "realistic magic" could a peak human be able to perform.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Yes, you should be using average age of the mother when giving birth.

If we use the horribly depressing numbers of the average medieval (or roman, or beaker culture) peasant girl first giving birth at 15, and having a kid every two years until they die at an average age of 25, four of whom die, that gives us an generation gap of 20 years.

And I cannot emphasize enough how much this strains the envelope on everything we know. The average lifespan for a peasant has some low numbers, but most of this is due to people dying as children, and even the most pessimistic averages barely approach 25. 15 years is also a pretty generous age for the first child. Teen pregnacies would be common, but they'll mostly be in the later teens, not mid.

Now, if we're tracing a mystic line where rapid turn overs are important, you might be able to trace an average 15 year line.

Age nine. Average 15 would fit into a regular historical average.

Originally Posted by copeab

Short of a dedicated eugenics program by a fairly evil (and male dominated organization), nine is simply too low for an average.

The younger, the worse, though it´s not precisely "male dominated" haha ;)

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Age nine. Average 15 would fit into a regular historical average.

I must be missing something. Are you claiming that 15 is the average age of any woman bearing any child throughout the course of history? or is some other sort of average? Is there some illuminatii scheme I missed?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Are not contradictions the essence of life?

That doesn't mean they make good fiction.

[AlexanderHowl]

Most women through history lacked the nutrition to have children at age 15, and those that had proper nutrition tended to suffer higher levels of maternal mortality because their bodies were still developing be for age 15. Age 9 is just not possible for the vast majority of girls throughout history.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Most women through history lacked the nutrition to have children at age 15, and those that had proper nutrition tended to suffer higher levels of maternal mortality because their bodies were still developing be for age 15. Age 9 is just not possible for the vast majority of girls throughout history.

Let's call it another day at Illuminati Corporation then.