Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

I don't think that solves anything. It's an absurd solution that makes characters of reasonable IQ impossible or unviable, basically. If there is a player who wants to play a Sherlock Holmes of life, he would basically be penalized in relation to the others.

You could make the same argument for DX, and try to justify an increase to the DX cost for something similar. That is, basically any character with a high attribute would be impossible to do in games with normal scores.

What is evident to me is not a problem with the attributes themselves. It's that your table can't handle them. There are many tables out there where this problem doesn't occur.

Players don't have defaults on all skills, for example. You must have a minimum of contact on the subject to roll the skill at default, even from TV. If you've never seen that in your life, you can't even take the roll, basically. At least as far as knowledge skills, physical skills you maybe can take a chance.

You need to manage what each player intends to do. What niche will he want to specialize in, if there will be one. More than that, you have to manage expectations, know what everyone wants or expects from the game. RPG is a social game and requires an agreement between the parties to function. When well managed, this type of problem does not usually occur. Each player will have their character in their area of interest.

A high IQ or DX character doesn't necessarily mean they'll be good at everything. Take Sherlock Holmes himself as an example: there are areas where he simply has no interest and relegates the task to someone else. This is very common in both RPGs and movies and series. Having IQ and DX 18 doesn't mean the character will want to be good at everything. A specialist in the occult and the like with an IQ of 18 will not necessarily be a good physicist, engineer or inventor, for example, if he has never seen such things in his life or has no interest. Furthermore, two characters with IQ 18 can be very different from each other.

I understand that some players like to mess around or like to be hyper-competent at everything. Maybe it's "Batman evil", where the player wants their character to be good at everything possible. It happens, I know. But this needs to be managed before the game takes place. Managing expectations, building characters... all this has to be discussed beforehand, to avoid problems during the game.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

They didn't put words in your mouth, they answered your implied question of what you should do with "high IQ is a problem". The answer is: Don't allow it.


This right here shows it is not a "high IQ is a problem" but a clear lack of communication between players and between GM and players.

One player wants to play a "low IQ skill-monkeys" then that is their niche, the other players should figure out something else to play and you as the GM should enforce this. The fact you allowed another player to then create a high IQ character that steals the spotlight from the first player is wrong.

Understanding what the players want to play and working with them to make sure each character WORKS TOGETHER and each player has something they, and ONLY they, can do is the job of the GM.

My only house rule I always play with is separating Will and Per from IQ, keeping IQ at 20/lvl and making Per and Will 10/lvl.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

As a player who has run PCs with IQs ranging from 9 to 14. Also a sometime GM...

I have built designs from mage to combat monster strongman to combat monster acrobat with Chaos Tinged Mage/Priest/Warrior thought to be a Boogyman by 1/3 to 1/2 of the worlds population (but still mostly fighting for good) in between.

Stats are not the end. Skills are not the end. They are the beginning. What you can think of to do with them will define how 'powerful' you are...

Sure it is the GM's job to make the game and table fun. It is also the job of ALL the players.

It will help everyone for YOU to know what you have built AND BE HAPPY playing it. Let your teammates handle your blind spots. If you are cut off and alone. Forced to do things you are NOT good at, life happens. Do the best you can and hopefully live to move on. Apparently that was the plot this week.

If you are not having fun or you find that the aspect of character you were exploring has reached its end.

Change.

Build a new character and embark on a new adventure.

More points can be fun but so long as you are holding down your end and contributing IME the rest of the team will not mind if you 'change hats'. Even if you are objectively less powerful.

It is a game. There is no right or wrong, just fun and unfun.

My 2 coppers.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

4. Buy the 16 IQ for the skill-monkey character with the -0% limitation "Only for skills." (Per and Will handled according to the normal rules.)

This allows one to play a PC who is very skilled but not a genius on a reasonable point budget.

Note that this requires your players to give away some PC power for free, so I expect (based on your comments for solution 2.) that this might not work for your group, but it is a viable GURPS hack for certain character concepts.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

It doesn't strike me as a good idea for any character concept to be about numbers. Numbers are how you translate character concepts into game mechanics. "Low IQ skill-monkey" isn't a character concept, it's screwing around with game mechanics in a suboptimal manner. Character concepts are:

"Rich kid dilettante with shallow knowledge of many subjects"
"Wise old scholar"
"Glib con-artist using social skill to fake expertise"
"Miracle-working engineer but awkward with people."
"The greatest doctor in the world but he pisses everyone off"

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

Low IQ Skill Monkey is the OPs example, not mine. Besides that, it wasn't a character concept about numbers.

Low IQ but skilled means the player wanted a character that was very skilled at things without having a very high IQ.

The OP then had another player go ahead and make a character with a high IQ that stole the low IQ but high skill players moments to shine.


Taking your examples, imagine if you want to play a "The greatest doctor in the world". That means high skill levels in everything related to being a doctor. Then comes along another player with "Wise old scholar" who just has a really high IQ and spends the bare minimum on any skill that doesn't have a default so they can roll against it. That "Wise old scholar" can take any of your moments away because their skill in all of your areas are equal.

That is a GM and player communication problem, not a problem with the rules or character concepts. Every player needs to communicate what they want to play and the GM needs to see how those characters will interact with each other and if there are any overlaps or even gaps, and then suggest changes. If the players don't want to change their minds even though it disrupts other character concepts, then that is a bad player. If the GM see this and doesn't suggest changes to prevent player niche being compromised, that is a bad GM.

Everyone should be together to tell a story and have fun, its not fun when the character YOU want to play never shines because someone else decided to steal the spotlight.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

IQ is a number.

Greatest Doctor in the World. IQ 12, Physician Skill 30. Cost 116.

Wise Old Man. IQ 16. Physician Skill 14. Cost 121.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

Personally I think the mistake is in the system, not the choice. Yes, it's not how I'd make a "broadly skilled" PC either, I'd go high IQ, Jack of All Trades, then focus on a few skills I wanted above 15-16... since you know all my IQ defaults would be 15+ (or 13+ if "high" only means IQ 16).


I see the mistake here, you think I'd only be raising the cost of IQ. DX has to go up as well, unless I was trying to discourage super genius PCs. But as I've already said "I want high IQ characters", it should be presumed that is not the goal.

It's not absurd. Raise the skill heavy Attributes (and strongly reassess some Advantages), give everyone more points, problem solved. Then a "IQ 18 and handful of very high skills" PC can easily co-exist with the "IQ 12 and a lot of 15-16 level skills" PC.

And why wouldn't you readjust your starting point totals? Are you wed to an arbitrary point total? I'm certainly not.

That's more than a bit insulting.

You should really double check on this one. Sure, if someone makes a character who has limited/no contact with the reference culture and tech levels, that's a reasonable ruling. But it's very rare that I've seen this, and it would be completely unreasonable to decide the super genius has no access to say, Survival, just because their defaulted skills risk stepping on the low IQ Survivalist's niche.

It is reasonable that the Player holds back and lets the Survivalist take point in survival encounters, but not that they sit around pretending they're incapable if the Survivalist goes down or is split from the group.

What's even more reasonable is when the GM find problems with the system, they investigate methods of fixing them instead of just telling Players "no you can't make high IQ PCs because the system is broken".

"Hyper competence" implies high IQ and putting points into all the skill the Player wants the Character to be competent in. That's fine. Literally, that's okay.

The problem is when the high IQ PC is also broadly "skilled" in everything due to high attribute defaults, to the extent that low IQ PCs with lots of points in skills aren't even equal to the defaults of the high IQ PC. That is a problem within the system. That it costs more to be as broadly skilled as the high IQ Character than the high IQ PC paid.

I've been running games for almost 40 years, let us all just accept that I understand Session Zero and focus on where the problem actually rests.



I wouldn't accept that as a Player. And my Players who know I'm fond of floating skills would give me the side eye if I tried to get that past them.

"Just have them take a high IQ" is not a solution for "making highly Skilled but low IQ PCs equal to the high IQ Attribute PCs in their default skills".


I know I keep saying "IQ"when I kinda do mean "Attributes", but really... it's because I have never encountered the problem with DX. I've never seen a Player want to make a low DX but highly physically Skilled PC. Probably because they also want good Initiative, good Dodge, and good Movement, and while you can make a "low DX, but good everything else DX related PC", it's, well, just as inefficient as the "low IQ well IQ Skilled" Characters, but also no one seems to want to play that concept.

Okay, now I want to play that concept and I'm annoyed at how terribly inefficient it is.†


† Actually, my solution would be to take a high DX and then invent a Disad like Clumsy [-X], "Take a -y on all base DX checks" or something. And then never approve it for my Players to take it because I almost never call for base Attribute checks. I prefer asking for Skill checks.



Inversely I think the obvious mistake is using RAW GURPS when the system isn't designed to balance that type of Character next to a "super genius hyper-skilled in a few areas". And, did you just call an entire Character concept a mistake? The highly competent but not particularly bright hero? Is a mistake?

Oh, my bad, let me inflate the word count for you:

"Very broadly skilled but not a very smart." Did 7 words do for you what 4 could not?

And yes, in my games "low IQ skill-monkey" is a fine concept (and clearly zoncxs gets the idea). When we sit down and ask for everyone's basic concepts so no one is niche stomping, I'm not looking for a life-path, a full history, or a 25 inch dissertation. 2-6 words is perfectly cromulent. If someone says "Super Genius" or "Combat Wombat" and it's not encroaching on someone else's one to however many word concept, I'm fine working from there. If two people say some variety of "Combat Guy", then they need to touch base and work things out between themselves before going forward... but "Combat Guy" works just fine as a starter.



Actually, what happened is someone made an IQ 12 very broadly skilled PC, spending somewhere around 100ish points in skills across around 50 IQ skills. Another Player made an IQ 15 "Doctor/Research Scientist" type PC with around 20ish IQ skills but only about 40ish points therein. Totally different skill sets on these two, one was a Mr Fixit/Survivalist, the other a Doctor/Research Scientist.

So far, so good. The low IQ PC's Player knew that what they were doing was inefficient, but they planned to pick up a few Talents later for important skills or to round out some competencies and just spend points in the important skills. Basically they wanted to be "broadly competent, but not "really, really, smart"... in others words, we knew what we were doing.

The problem started to arise when the Doctor keep bumping IQ instead of skills... I mean, I knew it was coming the first time we talked about what PCs were spending their exp on and the Doctor said "I'm saving for IQ". I've encountered this exact problem repeatedly, but usually it's the Wizard/Scientist/Doctor outshining the Face rather than a broadly competent Mr Fixit, but still. (Because most Mr Fixits would be mid-to-high IQ, it just makes sense point-wise, the problem with Faces is that Charisma is not the catch all that IQ is, and in DF, Face usually also means buying Wealth, another, albeit smaller, point hole for them to have to fill.)

Now the Doctor never actually had better repair or Survival skills, but broadly speaking, they were more competent everywhere else (IQ skill wise). Even with Mr Fixit taking Jack of All Trades.

It's not even always "decided to steal the spotlight". I've accidentally made characters that smashed other's desired secondary niches because... well... the system isn't good in those regards, and I like to play high IQ PCs. So "oops, my social defaults are higher then the (secondary‡) Face's bought skills" happens often enough I've been putting thought towards how to fix this aside from just pretending my PCs defaults aren't better than their purchased skills.


‡ By 'secondary" I mean the PC isn't primarily a "Face", but then no one else is, so they've bought up skills and maybe an Advantage or two to cover this area... and oops, my Wizard does it better because IQ is broken.



No, IQ is an attribute. 12 is a number.







Tell y'all what, I'm gonna move some of this discussion to it's own thread as it is kinda derailing this one.

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

What does "not very smart" mean to the player?

GURPS IQ isn't "how smart you are," it's "how broadly skilled you are." If it makes you feel better, consider it poorly named.

They may be much happier with a high IQ but a few key mental disadvantages (whichever best fit their idea of "not very smart").

Re: Odd Question in raising IQ.
 

You're just inflating the starting points. Personally, I think it's a bad solution. The problem for you seems to be when IQ starts to get too high. Charging 60 (or more!!) per level will penalize not only the IQ 18 character, but the IQ 12 character as well. And raising the points to compensate doesn't seem productive to me.

If the problem is when IQ starts to get too high, then maybe it's better to put a level cap and charge Unusual Background on top of that per level. In practice, it's as if the attribute becomes more expensive only after a certain level (let's say 15 or 16). That way you wouldn't be punishing the player who just wants to have an attribute 11 or 12.

Just imagine, a Dungeon Fantasy game where DX costs 60 per level. In Dungeon Fantasy, a physical combatant is expected to have DX around 13 to 16 starting. Let's take 14, which is the knight's. At 60 points per level, that would be 240 points (against the current 80). In a template that should cost 250 points. Ok, and then what? Putting starting points of 400 or more points to compensate? And it has other problems. Then imagine that another player, with the same points, but with DX 12 (120 points at the cost suggested by you). Then he spends on a single combat skill 120 points. This gives an SL of 42 in Broadsword, for example. Only with what the other character spent to have DX 14.

Honestly, for me the bill does not add up. It ends up becoming mathematically bad.

Take and look at the Dungeon Fantasy templates, for example. Or the ones from Action. Maybe even Monster Hunters (which is bigger). I don't see the problem you mentioned occurring. I know it can happen at some tables, with some players, depending on the sheet, but it doesn't seem common when each character has their niche. And even in templates in the same area (like the physical combatants in Dungeon Fantasy), they still have their differences, one does not nullify the usefulness of the other.

It was honestly not my intention to insult you. If it looked like that, I'm sorry. But I can't say in other words, if 3 out of 4 tables don't have this issue in play, then maybe it's a question of how you guys are managing these things. With all respect.