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Old 12-29-2023, 11:48 PM   #1
Bathawk
 
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Default What Are The Odds On Attributes?

Gurps assumes a person has an "average" of 10 in their attributes. Meaning hypothetically, for every "9" in an attribute, a Joe Average character would have an "11", or for every "8" a "12"

This rarely happens in the game or in real life for that matter, but it establishes a baseline for what is below average, average, above average, exceptional and so on.

But as you get torwards the higher extremes, it stands to reason that you will find less and less such exceptional attributes...third edition kind of modeled this by having attributes cost +10 points for the first few levels and increasing up to 25 points

But How rare/likely are you to find someone of a given attribute in any given population? Say in a city of one million, what percentage would have an attribute 15? or 18?

Of course what attribute it may be will vary, in a collegiate, or silicon valley type area it would be IQ, while in more rural areas it would be Strength or Health....but let's assume a generic random city of a million
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Old 12-30-2023, 01:29 AM   #2
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Default Re: What Are The Odds On Attributes?

Working off of This Kromm Post:

Most people have a 10 in any given stat. Depending on how you read "Most", either a majority should have a 10 in a given stat, or wayore than a majority should have a 10 in a given stat.

Let's assume stats are normally distributed, and stats are rounded to the nearest integer. Using a normal distribution with StDev 0.5, 68% should have a 10 in a stat, and 15.7% should have a 11 and the same should have a 9. The remainder are evenly higher or lower than 9-11.
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Old 12-30-2023, 02:34 AM   #3
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Default Re: What Are The Odds On Attributes?

That question has been asked dozens of times, especially for IQ. Maybe because IQ in GURPS sounds to correspond to real IQ; while it doesn’t: GURPS IQ also includes general knowledge, artistic and social talents, and a lot of other things which are not measured by psychological IQ tests.

GURPS authors always avoid posting in those threads. Maybe because the question “what is realistic?” doesn’t have just one answer. We don’t all agree about human limits. Worse, scientists don’t all agree about human limits … and they often are wrong when they speak about them. A lot of scientists told to Jacques Mayol that it was impossible to snorkel below 100 meters, until he did it.

Brief, what is realistic or not depends on the GM fiat and will change from a game table to another. It is a matter of opinion.

The problem with GURPS, which actually is one of its main advantages, is that it can handle realistic games as well as cinematic and even super heroic ones, with exactly the same rules. It is amazing! But it makes boundaries between realistic and not realistic blurred.

A character with IQ 18 knows almost all mental skills (including artistic and social ones) at 12 or more … which is the level of a professional. A character with ST 18 can lift 520 pounds (235 kg) from the ground above his shoulder without the least extra effort… dozens of times in a raw. A character with DX 18 knows almost all physical skills at level 12 or better (a professional level, again). A character with HT 18 will take five 9 mm bullets in the torso and still go on fighting as long as he will or run almost indefinitely … Are those characters realistic? They look more like Walter O’Brien (from the Scorpion TV series), Conan the Barbarian, Lara Croft or John Mac Lane (from the Die-Hard film series) than real characters.

So, in my realistic games, people with 18 in one attribute just doesn’t exist. Einstein and the likes only have IQ 15. And ditto for the other basic attributes. But it is just my opinion. Other GM put the limit at 14, or 16 …

As I said, it is a matter of opinion.
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Old 12-30-2023, 03:19 AM   #4
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Default Re: What Are The Odds On Attributes?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bathawk View Post
Gurps assumes a person has an "average" of 10 in their attributes. Meaning hypothetically, for every "9" in an attribute, a Joe Average character would have an "11", or for every "8" a "12"
That's a completely wrong assumption to me. Joe Average literally has a 10 in every attribute. GURPS doesn't assume some sort of range of attribute levels for "average" - it assumes "average" is 10. Period.

Double check your Basic Set for what Attribute levels actually mean.
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Old 12-30-2023, 06:37 AM   #5
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Default Re: What Are The Odds On Attributes?

I built a random generator that spits out that sort of stats about 10 years ago, and I've used it fairly often and I'm happy with the results. I've also generated stats for characters using a different system with a Guy named Hal.



I center IQ and DX around 10.5, not 10. Things just work better that way: most published templates bump one of these two attributes. ST and HT are based around 10, though I bump ST by 1 for men and decrease it by 1 for women, because that's what I needed to do to get the weight curve to match the US bell curve (this still gives me a good amount of strong women and shrimpy dudes). I don't generate the real extremes, because the point of this is to generate every-day people.



I roll a 3d6 (virtually):
For DX, 6 or under is a 9, 10-7 is a 10, 14-11 is an 11, 17-15 is a 12, and 18 gives a 13
For IQ, 6 or under is a 9, 11-7 is a 10, 15-12 is an 11, 17 or 16 is a 12, and 18 gives a 13
For HT, 3 or 4 is an 8, 7-5 is a 9, 8-13 is an 10, and 14-18 is an 11
ST is the biggest spread: 3 or 4 is a 7, 7-5 is an 8, 8 or 9 is a 9, and 10 or 11 is a 10, 12 or 13 is an 11, 14-16 is a twelve, and 17 or 18 is a 13.



I've also had a guy on this forum (hal) who when giving us a number of NPCs to work with, just rolled 7 + Floor(2d6/2) for stats. It gave a nice spread, a little less tight than I was expecting. I got lucky, I think.
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Old 12-30-2023, 07:03 AM   #6
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Default Re: What Are The Odds On Attributes?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
Let's assume stats are normally distributed...
But it's not a normal distribution. It's more of a Poisson distribution. A normal distribution has two tails that run off to plus and minus infinity. A Poisson distribution has one tail to plus infinity. The other side stops at zero.

There is also the confusion of average, median, and peak. For a normal distribution, these are the same. For a Poisson distribution: peak < median < average. In other words, more than half the population is below average.
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Old 12-30-2023, 11:29 AM   #7
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Default Re: What Are The Odds On Attributes?

10 isn't average. It's what zero points spent gets you.
It may be below average for a future society with excellent health care, but above average for a sickly society plagued by diseases and poor childhood nutrition.
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Old 12-30-2023, 02:51 PM   #8
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Default Re: What Are The Odds On Attributes?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
10 isn't average. It's what zero points spent gets you.
It may be below average for a future society with excellent health care, but above average for a sickly society plagued by diseases and poor childhood nutrition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Characters, p.14
A score of 10 in any attribute is free, and represents the human average.
That said, I've always taken it to be the average for a young (male) adult in decent health, suitable for military service. So the actual human average will be lower due to the old and infirm.
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Old 12-30-2023, 05:23 PM   #9
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Default Re: What Are The Odds On Attributes?

Quote:
Originally Posted by shawnhcorey View Post
But it's not a normal distribution. It's more of a Poisson distribution. A normal distribution has two tails that run off to plus and minus infinity. A Poisson distribution has one tail to plus infinity. The other side stops at zero.

There is also the confusion of average, median, and peak. For a normal distribution, these are the same. For a Poisson distribution: peak < median < average. In other words, more than half the population is below average.
The maximum limit isn't infinite though. Realistically it would be 15, maybe 16 for IQ and DX. More than that for ST, less than that for HT
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Old 12-30-2023, 05:29 PM   #10
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Default Re: What Are The Odds On Attributes?

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
The maximum limit isn't infinite though. Realistically it would be 15, maybe 16 for IQ and DX. More than that for ST, less than that for HT
In GURPS. IRL the minimum is zero but the maximum has not been found.
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