A Question of Strength.

[PaladinV]

I'm afraid this is probably been gone over exhaustively but I'll ask and as soon as I understand I'll let the thread die.

I'm thinking about how to use the four basic attributes to model/stat normal people, like an athlete vs a mathlete and I'm looking at basic lift which states that it's the amount of weight you can lift with one hand in one second.

So I'm thinking dumbbell clean and press. So I personally can clean and press a 65lb dumbbell. The thing is I'm not that strong.

So I'm thinking, maybe setting up the way you do for a lift, walking to the dumbbell, setting your feet, gripping the dumbbell ect constitutes doubling the time. If that's the case I wouldn't need an 18 strength to clean and press 65lb, I could do it with a 12.

So I found a skill, Lifting. So, a person with a good bit of experience performing the dumbbell clean and jerk might do the 65lb lift with how much strength? Is that really what lifting means?

Also, has anyone worked out a comparison between the vertical jump test and ST or DX, like, how would you compare someone's stats in the NFL combine to GURPS skills and stats?

Is this idea even of interest to other people or am I just being a dweeb?

[Boge]

Other factors come into play, like Lifting ST, Arm ST, even Extra Effort. So even though Gurps does a decent job of emulating realism, you have to remember that it's still a game and many of those rules are in place for gameplay and balancing purposes rather than realism.

You're not going to emulate realism perfectly.

[PaladinV]

I'm not so much trying to emulate real life as working toward a conceptual process by which I can stat out quantities which exist in real life. So my game has a feel of continuity to me. Unfortunately my gaming life is spent a lot more time statting and world building than i do playing because I'm usually hard up with scheduling. Thanks for replying.

I found a neat related thread.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=61037&page=3

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by PaladinV

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Also, has anyone worked out a comparison between the vertical jump test and ST or DX, like, how would you compare someone's stats in the NFL combine to GURPS skills and stats?

Mess around with ST for a while if you want to but do not go into the Gurps Move rules. They do not model athletic data well at all.

For example, let's say we want to do a champion sprinter. That means we want a sub 10 second 100 meters. The first step is to convert 100 meters to 110 yards because Gurps uses yards.

Let's try a Ground move of 10. In his first second of movement the sprinter covers 10 yards. On the second one his sprint bonus kicks in and he's going at 12 yards per second. If he continues thusly he'll do 110 yards in 9.33 seconds.

Google says the current World's Record is Usain Bolt at 9.58 so you've broken his record by 0.15 seconds.

How about 200 meters? Just keep sprinting at 12 yards a second and you'll break 220 yards at 18.50. The World's Record is again Bolt at 19.19.

Yet if you run a 40 yard dash as seen in the NFL combine your Move 10 guy should be able to do it in 3.5 seconds. I'm not sure I've ever even heard of a sub-4 second 40. 4.2 is usually considered wicked fast.

You can keep going at different distances but I've never found one where Gurps Move model matched the Real World at all well.

Oh, and it gets even worse at distance running.

[Anthony]

GURPS move on the one second timescale is particularly terrible. Going from still to five yards forward, then back to still, in a 1 second timeframe, isn't even physically possible unless you jump or aren't in one gravity, it requires an average horizontal acceleration of 1.8 Gs. It works better if you change a turn to 2 seconds and sprint to x2 move.

[PaladinV]

Wow, I haven't gotten as far as to look at the move rules beyond figuring basic movement. That's crazy. I guess within the confines of the system they work okay, for chases and what not?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by PaladinV

I'm afraid this is probably been gone over exhaustively but I'll ask and as soon as I understand I'll let the thread die.

I'm thinking about how to use the four basic attributes to model/stat normal people, like an athlete vs a mathlete and I'm looking at basic lift which states that it's the amount of weight you can lift with one hand in one second.

So I'm thinking dumbbell clean and press. So I personally can clean and press a 65lb dumbbell. The thing is I'm not that strong.

So I'm thinking, maybe setting up the way you do for a lift, walking to the dumbbell, setting your feet, gripping the dumbbell ect constitutes doubling the time. If that's the case I wouldn't need an 18 strength to clean and press 65lb, I could do it with a 12.

Looking at B17 and B353, a dumbbell clean and press seems to be a one-handed lift off the ground, and you can do that to lift up to BLx2 in a two second action. Thus the RAW require ST13 to do this without extra effort, etc.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by PaladinV

So I'm thinking dumbbell clean and press. So I personally can clean and press a 65lb dumbbell. The thing is I'm not that strong.

Consider that a clean and press maneuver isn't quite the same as BL.

BL is more like "an object that you can pick up in your hand in just one second with a single fluid motion and carry for a considerable amount of time without fatigue." Think "small shopping bag full of groceries" instead of 65 lb. dumbbell.

Also remember that Strength is a function of Size and mass and ST 10 represents hypothetical the human average. If you're young(ish), reasonably healthy, and reasonably fit, and you're are a male on the taller side of average, then you could easily have GURPS ST 11 or even 12 without trying that hard. If you work out, then it's not unreasonable for you to have effective GURPS ST of 13, or at least ST 11-12 + Lifting ST 1 or 2.

People have been speculating about how GURPS stats relate to RL since about 5 minutes since GURPS 1E was released back in the 1980s. For whatever reason, there isn't that much official information about how GURPS relates to real world record perforances. The most thoughtful unofficial attempt was T. Bone's extensive modifications for GURPS 3E.

IMO, folks trying to stat out RL GURPS Move, maximum ST, etc. often get it wrong because they just look at world records and then calculate the required GURPS Move or BL from there. Instead, it is more helpful to look at the range of expected competencies by age, sex, and possibly height and weight, like physical fitness standards tables for the military.

Once you've got a baseline that's at or below average for normal people, only then can you try to model what a top athlete is capable of. Even then, you have to look at average performance. Not Usain Bolt's best day ever, but the average of all his times with the 50 or 100 m, as well as the average times of the guys who came in 2nd and 3rd that day. Additionally, you need to look at what sports physiology says is the theoretical maximum human performance.

Assume any (near) world record represents a critical success with both Extra Effort and governing skill, plus Fit or Very Fit for endurance athletes or Lifting ST for power athletes, and work out BL or Basic Speed from there.

Finally, GURPS isn't good at measuring the "game of inches" or "fractions of a second" which characterize modern world records. Very occasionally you get breakthroughs in training which bring athletes closer to their theoretical maximum performance, but typically performance in world-class athletic events is closely matched. It wouldn't be unreasonable to set hard caps on maximum human DX, HT, & Will, as well as caps on skills like Running, Jumping, etc.

In top-level competition where all the competitors are evenly matched, actual winning time/distance is based on margin of success with skill and/or Will rolls, with the margins of success representing fractional improvement in performance over the next best performance. If the top two or three finishers in the field all have good days, and the winner of the event rolls a couple of critical successes, that's a new world record which beats the previous world record by some tiny amount.

[Flyndaran]

Not average. 10 stats indicate Gurps default of the mythical timeless young man ready for military service. That's all.

Also how long you can carry something of any weight is primarily about Fatigue. You may be able to carry 80% of your max FAR further than I could carry 60% of mine.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Assume any (near) world record represents a critical success with both Extra Effort and governing skill, plus Fit or Very Fit for endurance athletes or Lifting ST for power athletes, and work out BL or Basic Speed from there.

.

This approach would only work if that athlete's record-setting performance was sharply better than their average. This is usually not the case. Top professional/olympic athletes tend to be very consistent over time.

Then there's another thing about statistical performance and dice-rolling. If a Gurps characters put forth their personal best because they succeeded to an unusual degree at a Skill or Extra Effort roll there will be inevitable (by the rules) instances where they fail those rolls and therefore perform much worse. This is usually not seen either.

It's best to decide that Real People aren't Gurps characters.