GURPS Aging Rules Questions

[Minuteman37]

Ok so to find your effective HT score for the purpose of an aging roll you add your TL-3 and the same bonus or penalty for a fit/unfit advantage right?

If so that seems rather odd. Let's say in a hypothetical situation I was born in new york city on new year's day 1930 and I'm a pretty healthy baby boy, but not abnormally so at HT 12. So let's flash forward 50 years to the year 1980 and my first GURPS aging roll, It's 1980 the first year of TL8 so my effective HT for this roll is 12+8-3=17. Now according to the GURPS aging rules only an 18 is a failure for me and even that isn't a critical one, my chances of failing just one aging roll are 0.46% and only a failure on my HT score role will making future failure's happen more often. At this rate I'll be 87 before I fail my first roll and unless that was a HT roll I'll be 100 at the second and one every 12 years after that.

So is my math wrong or does a GURPS universe have unusually long lived people in it?

[ArchonShiva]

"Only 18 fails" is conditional on Longevity. In your example, any 17 or 18 is still a loss of two levels.

If you plan on ever reaching aging rolls, get Longevity - it's a bargain!

[Minuteman37]

Originally Posted by ArchonShiva

"Only 18 fails" is conditional on Longevity. In your example, any 17 or 18 is still a loss of two levels.

If you plan on ever reaching aging rolls, get Longevity - it's a bargain!

Ah I see what you're talking about, my bad and yes Longevity in a generational campaign is by far worth the points if you don't want to die from natural causes .

[Flyndaran]

Most people still die from cancer and heart disease rather than "old age" loss of stats.
Longevity does allow supposedly realistic humans to live past 200 though.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Most people still die from cancer and heart disease rather than "old age" loss of stats.
Longevity does allow supposedly realistic humans to live past 200 though.

Why shouldn't age-induced heart disease and age-induced cancer count as effects of failures on aging rolls?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Most people still die from cancer and heart disease rather than "old age" loss of stats.
Longevity does allow supposedly realistic humans to live past 200 though.

He might survive the direct effects (lose 9 Attribute pts) but unless he has Resistance to Disease+8 he'll have too many crit fails while rolling once per year v. the seasonal flu.

Over 200 ears he'll probably face the "killer flu" from Bio-tech (HT-4) rather than it always being the mild flu from Campaigns (HT-2) . Try and make HT-4 rolls from a base HT 8 and I think the end will be in sight.

Now, with Longevity, Resistance to Disease+8 and some Luck we might be in business.

[Peter Knutsen]

I don't recall all the details of GURPS' Aging Roll rules, but if it isn't present already then you could introduce an escalating penalty to the HT roll. IIRC they start at age 50 and are yearly (at first), so the first 10 could be unpenalized, the next 10 at a -2 penalty, the next 10 at a -4 penalty, the next 10 again at a -6 penalty. That might sound extreme, but keeping the TL bonus in mind, something like that would probably result in improved simulation.

Another thing that could be done, probably should be done, is to base Aging Rolls on (HT+10)/2 instead of straight up HT.

[NineDaysDead]

Old Thread:

Originally Posted by Grouchy Chris

Per the aging rules, B444, Longevity means that you succeed on an aging roll on anything but a 17 or 18, or only on an 18 if your modified HT is 17 or more. And if you fail the roll, you only lose one attribute level. Rolling a 17 or 18 is only a chance of 1/54, and so it is likely to take hundreds of rolls to bring any of a character's attributes down to zero, starting from 10. At four rolls a year after age 90, that means very likely living well past the world record of 122 years.

Making aging rolls experimentally against a character starting with 10 for all attributes, I get an average age at death with Longevity of about 169. The advantage is not listed as exotic, unlike Extended Lifespan, so I don't think this is the intended result. Am I misreading the rules somehow?

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Loss of IQ will make you forget to take your pills, turn off the stove or eat, possibly all at the same time.

I think that it is taking the attributes all the way down to zero that is giving the funny answers. Very low attribute levels for all of them aren't spelled out but when your IQ drops below 6 you apparently aren't able to use human language any more.

When I've done brute force looks at Longevity and Aging I've considered death to be likely around scores of 7 or below and get numbers in the low hundreds.

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Regarding disease, low HT screws you 3 ways:
1. You are more likely to get sick whenever you are exposed, so you get sick more often.
2. When you get sick the rules go: lose some HP, roll HT to resist, if you fail lose some HP, roll HT to resist, if you fail...
So someone with a low HT will lose more HP from the same disease on average.
3. Finally, after you have recovered, you roll HT to regain HP, someone with low HT takes longer to heal.

So, you lose HP more often, you lose more of them and you take longer to recover, eventually you’ll reach a point where you get sick, and start losing HP before you’ve finished healing from the last disease.

Campaigns describes “mild flu that ends in a day or two (24-hour delay, HT-2, 1 point of toxic damage, 12-hour interval, six cycles)”. For someone with HT 6 that means their resistance roll is 4, so we can assume they fail all of their rolls and lose 6 HP. With natural healing, someone with HT 6 only recovers 34 (33.8) HP per year! It will take them about 2 months to recover from a mild flu. Best hope they don’t get exposed to anything else in that time.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Why shouldn't age-induced heart disease and age-induced cancer count as effects of failures on aging rolls?

Cancer isn't a stat penalty. Also as it tends to kill in longer periods than two months it doesn't rise to Gurps disadvantage levels at all.

Some forms of heart disease could count as a Ht penalty. But isn't there already a disadvantage somewhere called weak heart?

For depressing realism, I think that instead of stat penalties, aging should give chunks of disdavantage points that PC and/or GM "spend" on appropriate age related problems.
I've imagined how each species seems to suffer certain age related disorders more often than others. Humans get heart disease and dementia like alzheimers, while cats get kidney problems. It woud make for an interesting table for aliens.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

He might survive the direct effects (lose 9 Attribute pts) but unless he has Resistance to Disease+8 he'll have too many crit fails while rolling once per year v. the seasonal flu.
....

My health is so so, and I've never had the flu in my 41 years on earth.
I don't think you can critically fail a roll to get a disease.
Also, why are you assuming zero medical intervention? If this guy's a TL 0 hermit, he's not going to get any human specific disease.