What's with the modesty about stats?

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Yes, but the Cult of Preferring Low Stats is "the Cult of Stat Normalization", and the other group you refer to don't have a name. I'm one of the "unnamed other people" fwiw.

I have used "Conclave of Point Optimization" in the past, since that's more often the driving force for anti-CSN arguments than a desire for cinematic character IME. (Low stat cinematic characters cost a lot of points compared to high stat ones.)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

Einstein was a smart guy. But how do we model that? Generally these fora side with Giving him an above average IQ, a few levels of Math talent and high skills in Math and physics. Note that by doing it this in this way, Einstein isnt represented as an amazing socialite. If you were to just model him in your game by giving him a High IQ as a shorthand, then thats just fine as well. Generally speaking Ben Franklin is the guy I hear most often when mentioning 'real world' examples of those with high IQ.

I tend to think of Goethe and Mill, and maybe Aristotle.

Bill Stoddard

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Aneirin

Now I'm depressed ;_;

Thanks for the chuckle. "Majority of people are low-income service workers...and not particulalry succsesful ones neither" Made me smile and cry at the same time.

Sadder when you realize he obviously meant majority in developed nations. The majority of humanity now, let alone in the past, can't depend on having safe drinking water or food tomorrow.
No matter how down I get about my employment excluding issues, I focus on how lucky I am to have caring relatives and all the basics of survival plus a couple modern luxuries like internet access.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I tend to think of Goethe and Mill, and maybe Aristotle.

Bill Stoddard

What about Newton? He invented the cat door, and if I believe the internet, all things cat related are the pinnacle of existence. :)

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I think much of the issue with stat normalization is that core set describes 50 points as being a reasonably competent, and anything over that as "Exceptional". a score of 14 is described as being extremely exceptional. And with 50 points describing the majority of humanity, it probably is.

So GM's give out 150+ points. and with 150 points, 14 is high, but its not terribly special. PC's frequently have such numbers.

This hits the nail on the head.

—

A score of 13 or 14 is "exceptional" in the world of 50-point competent humans, because a 50-point human would have to take -10 to -30 points of disadvantages just to afford the 60-80 points for DX or IQ 13-14, making him a very one-note and slightly unbelievable person. However, when one scales up to a 150-point campaign, there are three times the discretionary points and a higher ceiling may be needed for attributes. We set this at 20. In that case, the GM must decide whether he's running a 150-point campaign that's "competent 50-point characters with 100 points of special training and experience" (in which case capping attributes at 14 or maybe 15 is sensible) or "heroes of larger-than-life tales" (in which case accepting the occasional 16-20 is advised). A fair number of GURPS players prefer the former because GURPS does realism moderately well, but it doesn't follow that the designers intended for attributes to be kept low . . . in a campaign where everybody gets 150+ points and is told "create whatever amazing hero you like, as long as there are no superhuman abilities," DX or IQ 20 is not considered superhuman (like Innate Attack or Mind Control), but merely cinematic (like Gadgeteer or Weapon Master).

Another way of putting it is that one can emulate cinematic capabilities in heroic fiction by going "sideways" to Gadgeteer for the inventor and to Trained by a Master for the martial artist, or by pushing into the realm beyond the real world's best and ramping the inventor's IQ or martial artist's DX up a couple of levels instead. Either is valid, and the choice is a personal one, not a matter of objective right or wrong. What "normalizers" tend to forget is that the silent majority of gamers are happily running larger-than-life games, not "realism plus" games, while what fans of cinematic gaming often overlook is that GURPS builds on a foundation of realism that some of their fellow GURPS fans might hold dear. I've always felt that people in each camp ought to state their bias in the first sentence of every post, or even in their .sig, rather than take it as understood. It would avoid a lot of silly arguments.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Ji ji

Since 3rd edition...
Dai Blackthorn was a greenhorn burglar wearing tattered clothings. DX 15 and IQ 12 -.-"

Yes and no. In Third Edition, Dai was built on 100 points, which was "Hero Potential." In other words, he was hardly going to be your run-of-the-mill footpad -- this was a guy with the talents to be a master thief, who just happened to be at the early stages of his origin story.

[Fwibos]

Another bit that I think is forgotten are non-combat bonuses. Leonardo Da Vinci worked for yeqrs. No doubt he was brilliant, but if you add +4 for noncombat use of skills and +1 or +2 to tools and time, even a skill of 9 works out to a 14-15 when you roll.

Even prodigious writers and authors may have taken extra time. When we see a work of art, especially an old one, we sometimes fail to realize the amount of the time it took to do it.

[Kromm]

The point about bonuses is very important. If you expect PCs to succeed at difficult tasks under grave pressure, then they will by definition have far higher scores than the real world's best. Where a da Vinci could get by with, say, "14 plus lots of bonuses for time and equipment," a MacGyver is relying on "20 minus lots of penalties for haste and improvisation." Even accounting for Gadgeteer in this instance, one needs more IQ to achieve MacGyver-like effectiveness on a points budget. The question the GM needs to answer is whether his campaign is built around "the life and times of history's best" or "the thrilling adventures of this character-centric storyline's action hero." They aren't compatible models, and the two characters in question don't live in the same game world, even if both storylines claim to be set in our reality and there's a da Vinci in the history of MacGyver's world.

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by martinl

I have used "Conclave of Point Optimization" in the past, since that's more often the driving force for anti-CSN arguments than a desire for cinematic character IME. (Low stat cinematic characters cost a lot of points compared to high stat ones.)

Note: I'm anti-CSN but I don't prioritize Point Optimization. Indeed, I am a person who believes that it isn't always in keeping with character concept to raise the stat as high as possible and keep the points spent in skills as low as possible. Sometimes I think it is better to have DX 15 and 12cp spent in a skill than DX 17 and 4cp spent in a skill...if the character concept calls for someone with a lot of experience. But almost never do I agree with the CSN, especially when they start creeping into Skills and feel like "realistic" combatants should only have Guns skills of 12.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by trooper6

Note: I'm anti-CSN but I don't prioritize Point Optimization. Indeed, I am a person who believes that it isn't always in keeping with character concept to raise the stat as high as possible and keep the points spent in skills as low as possible. Sometimes I think it is better to have DX 15 and 12cp spent in a skill than DX 17 and 4cp spent in a skill...if the character concept calls for someone with a lot of experience. But almost never do I agree with the CSN, especially when they start creeping into Skills and feel like "realistic" combatants should only have Guns skills of 12.

Spending points on a single primary skill is actually point optimal.