My personal fixes to rules I find weird.

[gibberingmouther]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

You presented something as a reply to his post. That indicates you're saying something about that post, and if one can't discern what that is it is...concerning.

i understand what you're saying. i guess i thought i implied that there was not necessarily a valid connection between unarmed attacks and basic lift, as he was asserting (but see my previous post). just trying to be helpful like you're supposed to do on forums.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by gibberingmouther

note where it says in the group of Olympic boxers, the flyweights punched out of proportion to their size. this happens because speed > lifting strength.

Look at the different classes of Olympic weightlifters. There is an inverse relationship between body weight and lifting ability i.e. the little guys lift out of proportion to their body weight too.

This is mostly because of the cube-square law and the way muscle cross-section affects strength.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Great, but you're again leaving out the part where you actually fix the problem. "Racial Memory (Passive) shouldn't give a totally uninformative feeling on success" is pointing out the problem, not a solution to the problem.

I am proposing a general solution, as a skill of reading GURPS, that if you read something that doesn't seem worth the cost, (and especially when nobody else seems to have an issue with it like with me and Racial Memory) then you can try a) figuring out what the fictional element it is based on is, and b) comparing it to similar cost traits. I

Originally Posted by gibberingmouther

well you were basing a property of unarmed attacks on lifting strength, while i was saying there was not necessarily a valid connection between the two (well there is a connection, but it is limited). don't know why you got ****** off about me quoting you, lol. i wasn't being hostile just offering helpful information.

No asterisks here, friend. You quoted a large block of text, including stuff that isn't relevant to this, and then replied in a way that was really ambiguous (to me). I was informing you that I didn't understand.

At any rate, the weapon weight limit is based on weapon mass, not strike force, and for consistency at least that should be the case with unarmed attacks too. I don't really know if force, mass, or momentum is the actually relevant quantity, but whichever one it is it should apply to all attacks, armed, unarmed, melee and ranged.

I think intuitively trying to stop a really heavy thing with a much lighter lever seems to be difficult, and the physics says greater mass (not force or momentum) means that the lever arm needs to be farther from the fulcrum, which can certainly result in a required distance longer than your weapon.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I am proposing a general solution, as a skill of reading GURPS, that if you read something that doesn't seem worth the cost, (and especially when nobody else seems to have an issue with it like with me and Racial Memory) then you can try a) figuring out what the fictional element it is based on is, and b) comparing it to similar cost traits.

I am continuing to not see a solution, even a general one. (I'm wondering if there was meant to be another sentence?)

In any case I'm fairly sure that I'd categorize any specific solution that followed from this as a fix to the text, not a way of reading GURPS. Defining the rules may not be left as an exercise for the reader!

(I have no disagreement with your issue with Racial Memory, at present. It's not a trait I've ever cared enough about to give much thought to, so it's likely I've never brought it up. I don't really see how it could be made useful without either completely replacing the text or only allowing it when your direct ancestors have extremely narrow and significant experiences...)

[Flyndaran]

The Intent sounds like a reworded Common Sense under heavy control by the GM.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I am continuing to not see a solution, even a general one. (I'm wondering if there was meant to be another sentence?)

I am saying it's like how you learn how to evaluate advertising claims, or take multiple choice tests, or all sorts of life skills where the information needed is inductive.

In any case I'm fairly sure that I'd categorize any specific solution that followed from this as a fix to the text, not a way of reading GURPS. Defining the rules may not be left as an exercise for the reader!

Ultimately in any RPG this is exactly the case always, the GM interprets the rules (and more generally in any game, the participants and officials interpret the rules). This is especially more true of GURPS then some other systems that have very case-based rules construction and narrowly defined terms-of-art.

(I have no disagreement with your issue with Racial Memory, at present. It's not a trait I've ever cared enough about to give much thought to, so it's likely I've never brought it up. I don't really see how it could be made useful without either completely replacing the text or only allowing it when your direct ancestors have extremely narrow and significant experiences...)

In this thread I get the distinct impression that everyone thinks that I am nuts.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I am saying it's like how you learn how to evaluate advertising claims, or take multiple choice tests, or all sorts of life skills where the information needed is inductive.

Your use of 'inductive' confuses me, but not as much as the way the actual 'solution' appears to remain devoid of description.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Ultimately in any RPG this is exactly the case always, the GM interprets the rules (and more generally in any game, the participants and officials interpret the rules). This is especially more true of GURPS then some other systems that have very case-based rules construction and narrowly defined terms-of-art.

I do not agree with this perspective except on the inevitable marginal cases. The core rules both should and do speak quite rigorously, and generally not require you to invent some whole completely unstated thing and pretend it was implied.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

In this thread I get the distinct impression that everyone thinks that I am nuts.

Perhaps I slightly disagree with your issue, then. While the Advantage not saying that you can tell when you're getting Racial Memory déjà vu is a flaw, I'm much more hung up on it only giving you a feeling of déjà vu. That is, it doesn't say that it tells you anything about your ancestors' experience with the situation except that they had one. Everyone in that thread seems to have presumed it gives you fairly specific information about the ancestral experience, which I find totally at odds with the text.

Your final post had the exchange:

GM: You feel a vague sense of deja vu about that one thing.
Player: Ok is that my Racial Memory, or just regular deja vu?
GM: You can't tell, it's pretty vague.

Mine would be:

GM: You feel a vague sense of deja vu.
Player: Ok, that's my Racial Memory, right? ...My ancestors are remembering what about what, here?
GM: It's up to you to interpret that.

[ericthered]

by RAW wearing thick enough armor on your torso makes you immune to large area damage, as you're supposed to use the average of it and another value.

So I have ruled that unless the damage can penetrate the Torso armor, you take half of the area damage minus your lowest exposed DR (as determined in the RAW rules on this).

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Your use of 'inductive' confuses me, but not as much as the way the actual 'solution' appears to remain devoid of description.

The solution involves figuring out what is missing from the problem, which is inductive reasoning.

What I am saying is:
Problem: This GURPS rule makes no sense to me, or this trait's cost seems to be not in line with the effects.
Try:
A) Don't treat any "or" as exclusive unless it is preceded by "either".
B) Try to match it with the source in fiction. The trait or rule should probably work like the most prevalent fictional usage.
C) Try to compare it to similar rules or traits. Effects should be similar in scale to effects of similar cost, difficulty, or probability.
D) If you can come up with an interpretation that makes sense use that.
E) Err on the side of what is the most fun for the players.

I do not agree with this perspective except on the inevitable marginal cases. The core rules both should and do speak quite rigorously, and generally not require you to invent some whole completely unstated thing and pretend it was implied.

Sure, ideally the rules will be written so that the intent is pretty clear to everyone but this isn't actually possible. Sometimes it will be clear to mostly everyone, but some people will not understand. This is why FAQs are things after all. People ask about stuff here all the time that seem utterly obvious to me (this includes stuff that is included in the FAQ!) and most of those appear equally obvious to you, I think.

Perhaps I slightly disagree with your issue, then. While the Advantage not saying that you can tell when you're getting Racial Memory déjà vu is a flaw, I'm much more hung up on it only giving you a feeling of déjà vu. That is, it doesn't say that it tells you anything about your ancestors' experience with the situation except that they had one. Everyone in that thread seems to have presumed it gives you fairly specific information about the ancestral experience, which I find totally at odds with the text.

I think it is largely the same issue, "vague sense of deja vu" doesn't covey a very specific example of what the ability actually does to either of us. This is compounded, for me anyway, by the use of "vague" and "deja vu" which describes seemingly an especially useless version of something that was already useless. In any case, both of of us would probably be more happy with something like "You remember an ancestral experience that gives you a useful insight about your present situation".

However the possibility remains that it is just the two of us, in which case it isn't worth them treating it as errata, but far more efficient to just tell us.

If one or two people have a problem understanding a rule, explain it to them.
If several people have a problem understanding a rule, put it in the FAQ.
If almost nobody gets it, consider an errata correction.
If the author doesn't even know what it means it is definitely errata. :)

FWIW, I don't have the problem you do with Contacts as an example of how perceptions of clarity can differ.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

...

In this thread I get the distinct impression that everyone thinks that I am nuts.

It looks like Kromm and even I agreed with most of your point though.

It's a kind of Danger Sense+ but only for situations the GM decides are plausible to have been understood by ancestors. I think your hatred for even the appearance of metagaming may be coloring how you read our suggestions.