Attribute levels and their meanings.

[Anaraxes]

Personally, I have little use for giving integers on a scale a different set of arbitrary names than "one, two, three...". The adjectives don't have definite meanings (unlike the integers) and also mean different things to different people, so the relative feel that appealed to the creator might just confuse others. Is "Fantastic" higher or lower than "Epic"? Is "Brawny" more or less strong than "Strong"? It defeats the purpose to have to consult the official ladder of adjectives to determine what your score is by converting it back to a number -- particularly if you're taking a difference between levels or adding an offset to them. ("Cinematic" + 2 equals "Transcendental"? Or was that "Superlative"? But I know what 14 + 2 is without a chart...)

If you want to apply some adjectives to stat levels to give players a feel or add a little color to the character sheet, that's a good thing. Just don't try to make the words into actual game mechanics. You could even have whole sentences or a paragraph about how an above-average stat presents in play -- and two characters with the same numerical stat might even present differently. One IQ 12 character might be "clever" while another is "sly" and the third "studious".

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Yes, you´re always free to play in unrealistic, fantastic and overpowered settings. What I introduce here is limited to realistic human beings.

No, it is an idea of what one person thinks is realistic. It is a subjective assessment, not an objective assessment.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

No, it is an idea of what one person thinks is realistic. It is a subjective assessment, not an objective assessment.

Oh, it is so wrong then. Human attributes averaging 10 is stated on p. 14 of the chapter "Creating a Character" of the Basic Set.

10: Average. Most humans get by just fine with a score of 10!

This is clearly one of the most basic axioms on which the entire Gurps system is built.

[Celjabba]

If you ask 10 Gurps GM to describe their approach and scales for "realistic attributes and skills levels for a mundane human in a realistic contemporary setting", you will likely get 11 different answers.

Showing the scale you use in your game and the reasoning behind it is very useful and informative, especially for new GMs, but attempting to convince others that is is the one true scale is likely futile :)

I will also join Anaraxes in saying that I prefer numbers to adjectives. Since English is not my first language, sorting adjectives by level of awesomeness (or the lack of) is not intuitive to me ... 12 is better than 11, but I haven't a clue whether deft is better or not than nimble.

The "best in the xxx" approach, on the other hand, is extremely useful to describe a world, and should be part of every world building or setting description. That description is easy to grasp, intuitive and informative both for the GM and the player.

[AlexanderHowl]

Yes, '10' is average, but that does not mean that '20' is unrealistic, it just means that the average of humanity is '10' when we look across the entire population of humans at a given time. Now, the interesting question is whether the '10' of the ancient Roman Republic is the same as the '10' of contemporary Western Nations (I would suggest that it is not the same '10').

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Yes, '10' is average, but that does not mean that '20' is unrealistic, it just means that the average of humanity is '10' when we look across the entire population of humans at a given time. Now, the interesting question is whether the '10' of the ancient Roman Republic is the same as the '10' of contemporary Western Nations (I would suggest that it is not the same '10').

As far as giving the same odds of success on the same rolls, a Roman 10 is equsl to a modern 10. Mapping to real world feats on the other hand... hard to say. You can argue either way.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There is still such a thing as "Nobody is that good."

That's an axiom, and as with all such things, expect it to be proven wrong. ;)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

That's an axiom, and as with all such things, expect it to be proven wrong. ;)

Tell me when someone picks up a ten-ton weight.

[khorboth]

I'm really mathy, so I like numbers as well. When I need to relate things to the real world, I jump through a couple of hoops.

ST: Basic Lift is how much you can lift from the ground to over your head in one second with no extra effort. It's also how much you can carry without noticing any encumbrance whatsoever.

IQ & DX: Look at some defaults that a person is familiar with.
Boating defaults to IQ-5 or DX-5, so someone with IQ 15 has about a 50/50 chance of figuring out how to work a simple sailboat with no training whatsoever. Likewise, someone with DX15 has a 50/50 chance of managing it even though they don't really know what they're doing.
Thrown Weapons default to DX-4, so someone with DX12 has a 26% chance of hitting a target (simplified, assuming penalties for range cancel non-combat and aiming bonuses)
Law defaults to IQ-6, so someone with an IQ 10 should be able to successfully navigate the complexities of a lawsuit about 2% of the time.
Pick something the player knows which has a default, and relate it to an untrained person with natural attribute.

HT:
This one's harder. At about 12, odds are in favor of combat death being due to damage rather than a failed HT roll (shock). I would think that something around 16 would be necessary for reasonable odds of staying standing through the kind of grueling punishment necessary to die on your feet like what led to the standing 8-count in boxing. I haven't run the odds, though, as it would depend a lot on how long the fight went on and how many rolls for consciousness need to be made.

[sjard]

<Moderator>Just a reminder to keep the tone civil please. It has been edging into adversarial, and that doesn't tend to lead to a good conversation.

Thank you.
</Moderator>