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Old 09-26-2022, 02:38 PM   #11
maximara
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by ravenfish View Post
But my point is that this isn't a change from the current rules. Under the rules as written(Basic p.168), a character who has bought down IQ to animal levels cannot use technological skills, but this reduction in IQ is worth the same number of points whether it is denying the animal pointed sticks and flint knapping or denying it blasters and teleporters.

This is the choice GURPS seems to make, and presumably the OP is retaining it to minimize changes (and to keep animal templates from changing in value with the campaign TL). Whether it is a good choice is a different question, but it seems consistent with other rules- for example, owning nothing more than the clothes on your back (Wealth:Dead Broke) is of constant value regardless of the tech level and the coolness of the toys you can't afford.
GURPS Power-Ups 9 - Alternate Attributes allows you to break attributes into components which for IQ are the following:

*Will: [5] per +1
*Per: [5] per +1
*Academic skills [3] per +1
*Social skills [2] per +1
*Technical skills [2] per +1
*Brainier “adventure” skills [3] per +1

Depending on how "big" you consider TL skills (up to [5]) that can be used rather than coming up with a new disadvantage.
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Old 09-26-2022, 03:59 PM   #12
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by JulianLW View Post
Yes. This is a thread about disconnecting sapience from IQ, in which case, buying IQ of 6 or above with the proposed "Nonsapient" disadvantage would not give the character access to tech skills. A flat -100 for Nonsapient flattens the effect of tech levels. A genius chimp with IQ 6 is at a much greater disadvantage in the year 2022 AD than he would have been in the year 2022 BC, but the proposed Nonsapient disadvantage eliminates that distinction.
Under RAW, if you buy IQ up into the human range, you are, by definition, sapient. The equivalent of that under a ruleset where Nonsapient is its own disadvantage is to buy off the disadvantage. Even by RAW, animals have Taboo Trait (Fixed IQ), so you can't buy up their IQ into sapience without going off-template anyway.

The whole reason for wanting Nonsapient as its own trait is that sapience isn't really about IQ; it's about the mental component of the ability to use tools, language, and skills that rely on tools and language. I find it, well, kinda dumb to represent that as a special case that kicks in when you buy your IQ down so far that it effectively stops being an attribute. That would be like defining an absence of opposable thumbs as a DX of 5 or less instead of having No Fine Manipulators (incidentally forcing animals to buy a bunch of Basic Speed just like they currently have to buy a bunch of Per and Will!)

The difference you're perceiving just isn't there. My Nonsapience disad does the same thing that RAW's IQ-based nonsapience does, and for the same point cost. The real difference is that it leaves animals with usable IQ scores! RAW doesn't have all that much for animals to do with this IQ, but that's only because their low IQ would have made them really bad at it. The only things I can think of are advantages that require IQ rolls. This change opens up a lot of possibilities blocked off by a weird design quirk that feels like a half-eaten leftover from 3e that the writers just forgot to throw out back in 2004.

Last edited by VIVIT; 09-26-2022 at 04:08 PM.
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Old 09-26-2022, 07:49 PM   #13
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by VIVIT View Post
The inability to comprehend the meaning of language is not a part of Cannot Speak. Cannot Speak is a purely physical trait and can coexist with full Native level in any spoken language. Nonsapience—whether by my writeup or by the RAW definition of "racial IQ ≤ 5"—is a purely mental one and cannot.
OK. But the ability to comprehend what you are saying is part of Cannot Speak. An animal (like a parrot) that just copies the sounds of language that it hears without understanding what they mean has Mimicry, not the ability to speak, which is precluded out by the Animal meta-traits. CotN Volume 4 has a build like that. An animal that makes noises that sound like words still has Cannot Speak; it just kinda sounds funny.

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Originally Posted by VIVIT View Post
Nonsapient IQ 11, that is, which isn't comparable with sapient IQ any more than the fine manual component of DX is comparable with DX (No Fine Manipulators, −40%).
Well, no. NFM DX is comparable to DX, as long as you're comparing something that doesn't need hands, like hitting things or playing soccer (not goalie). By analogy of non-sapient is to IQ as NFM is to DX, if you gave a chimpanzee a non-technological or linguistic task, it would outperform the average human ~55% of the time. Given that Chimpanzees pass the mirror test 75% of the time, and two year olds pass the mirror test 65% of the time, 55% is rather speculative.

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If Nonsapient were to include a signed analogue of Cannot Speak, that would be double-dipping… with No Fine Manipulators!
Well, only if the animal had both. There are many animals *without* NFM, while pretty much all animals have non-sapient.
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Old 09-26-2022, 08:44 PM   #14
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

I don't get what this is trying to solve.

A player playing something nonsapient seem a bit counter productive to role playing.
And for NPCs it doesn't really matter anyway.

Sure, there's skill checks for IQ but why would a nonsapient entity use it's IQ based skills if it hasn't reasoned a need for it?

And if it just does them randomly, then can they really be considered a skill?
And not just a function?

Cause, sure, a computer program knows the maths you teach it.
But unless it is sapient or something...it would't go beyond.
And if we have to become specific/special to some niche things, then maybe they're niche for a reason.

Like, if we had to split hairs what sapience means for a computer program/neural network that increases some capability it has.
It's still just a function, but then one could go "Isn't human sapience just functions/chemicals" etc.

In that case, I'd go again with the beginning of my post.
If it's an NPC then who cares, it behaves as it behaves, with some token IQ score to resolve things based on it.

And as a player...well, nonsapience, again is kind of stifling, don't you think?

And yeah this is for animals but those do communicate, but after a certain level, it's very very simple and can get reduced to 'skinner box' learning and instinct.

The parrot might not know what its saying. But if a pigeon does a dance to get a treat cause it learned that, then the parrot probably has the ability to connect things too.
Maybe not for casual speech like "Squaawwkkk, the meteorological report is in, screee", and all you do is say "Oh what's the weather going to be?"
Then that doesn't mean anything to the animal.

But if you inflicted some pain or direct reward to some phrase, it would probably connect the things.

So they work with their low IQ and non 'sapience'.
Why play something like that as a player, though?
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Old 09-26-2022, 09:13 PM   #15
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by Lovewyrm View Post
So they work with their low IQ and non 'sapience'.
Why play something like that as a player, though?
Animal sidekicks as Allies.
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Old 09-26-2022, 10:42 PM   #16
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by VIVIT View Post
Under RAW, if you buy IQ up into the human range, you are, by definition, sapient. The equivalent of that under a ruleset where Nonsapient is its own disadvantage is to buy off the disadvantage. Even by RAW, animals have Taboo Trait (Fixed IQ), so you can't buy up their IQ into sapience without going off-template anyway.

The whole reason for wanting Nonsapient as its own trait is that sapience isn't really about IQ; it's about the mental component of the ability to use tools, language, and skills that rely on tools and language. I find it, well, kinda dumb to represent that as a special case that kicks in when you buy your IQ down so far that it effectively stops being an attribute. That would be like defining an absence of opposable thumbs as a DX of 5 or less instead of having No Fine Manipulators (incidentally forcing animals to buy a bunch of Basic Speed just like they currently have to buy a bunch of Per and Will!)
I don't think that quite works.

It's true, on one hand, that if you buy a point of IQ, you get a point of Per and a point of Will for free. So in that sense IQ seems to be something broader than just "intelligence" in the sense in which that word is commonly used.

But on the other hand, if you buy up IQ, and then buy Per and Will back down, you have spent a net 10 points on buying—something. And I'm not sure what is left of that something if you are, let us suppose, a being incapable of language and of tool use.

Can we envision an incredibly cunning "beast" that has IQ 15, but is Nonsapient? How is it different from one that has IQ 10, Per 15, and Will 15? What are its extra capabilities? Or, for that matter, if a very smart animal has IQ 10, human-equivalent, but is Nonsapient, how are its capabilities different from those of an animal with IQ 5, Per 10 and Will 10?

It seems to me that most of the knowledge-based skills, from Archaeology to Physics, depend on the use of language (or a non-sound-based equivalent; see the Signals trait in GURPS Template Toolkit 2), not merely for communication, but as a medium for storing information. At least several of the Influence skills—perhaps all but Intimidation and Sex Appeal—require communication in language, and that seems to be true for a wider range of social skills also. And most technological skills require tool use AND language; I can imagine an "animal" being capable of Carpentry or Masonry or the like without these (a bird building a nest, for example), but not of Machinist or Electronics Repair or Metallurgy. Marx says in one of his books that the difference between an animal and a human worker is that the human builds the house or makes the tool in his imagination before he does so in the physical world; that ability seems to be part of what we are calling "sapience"—and without it, what would IQ let you do?
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Old 09-27-2022, 03:58 AM   #17
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Animal sidekicks as Allies.
Aren't those special, though?
Playing an animal sidekick straight, would be quite diminished, unless it's an intelligent animal, because that makes it more believable.

What's a toad gonna do? A raven? Cat? Koala?
The raven and cat stand out as more suitable candidates because the other two are really dumb when 'played straight'.

Raven picks a lock? I can believe it.
Cat fetches a key? I can believe it, too.
Koala? Unless it's direct koala things, I don't believe anything that smoothbrain does, and even then, I have no confidence in it as an animal, whatsoever.

A toad can at least, I dunno, make a cool noise and eat bugs.

And the higher the 'IQ' of the animal, the less believable it feels that it's 'not sapient', even if it's not on a human level.

"This is the Blorg, it's got an IQ of 500 but is not considered sapient."
"What does it do?"
"Nothing, really."
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Old 09-27-2022, 04:33 AM   #18
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Can we envision an incredibly cunning "beast" that has IQ 15, but is Nonsapient? How is it different from one that has IQ 10, Per 15, and Will 15? What are its extra capabilities? Or, for that matter, if a very smart animal has IQ 10, human-equivalent, but is Nonsapient, how are its capabilities different from those of an animal with IQ 5, Per 10 and Will 10?
I usually avoid house rules because they often unbalance the game ... But I have to admit that VIVIT one is good exactly for that.

Yes, precisely, we sometimes need those different capabilities; especially the GM.

There are many rolls where IQ is required rather than Will or Per. Does the animal realize that the bait will send him to a trap? Some could say that it can be solved with a Per roll to notice the trap, but, sometimes, animals are clever enough to realize that it may be a trap even if they didn't notice it. The old wolf do not fall into the same trap twice, says the adage. It's much more a matter of reflection than perception, and making a will roll would be even weirder.

Likewise, an IQ roll is the most logical answer for all these questions: does the animal remember who has got this smell, can it solve the mechanic puzzle to get the food, get out of the enclosure, think to steal the key of the guardian of the zoo to open the door (like a chimp once did), and so on ...

And the problem with the current rules, as said by VIVIT, is that all the individuals of the same species are almost equal while, in reality, some individuals are far much brighter than others, exactly as for humans.

Last edited by Gollum; 09-27-2022 at 05:03 AM.
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Old 09-27-2022, 05:02 AM   #19
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

Isn't "non-sapient but as good as a human at IQ things not forbidden by non-sapience" pretty much what the Bestial disadvantage is for?
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Old 09-27-2022, 06:07 AM   #20
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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I usually avoid house rules because they often unbalance the game ... But I have to admit that VIVIT one is good exactly for that.

Yes, precisely, we sometimes need those different capabilities; especially the GM.

There are many rolls where IQ is required rather than Will or Per. Does the animal realize that the bait will send him to a trap? Some could say that it can be solved with a Per roll to notice the trap, but, sometimes, animals are clever enough to realize that it may be a trap even if they didn't notice it. The old wolf do not fall into the same trap twice, says the adage. It's much more a matter of reflection than perception, and making a will roll would be even weirder.

Likewise, an IQ roll is the most logical answer for all these questions: does the animal remember who has got this smell, can it solve the mechanic puzzle to get the food, get out of the enclosure, think to steal the key of the guardian of the zoo to open the door (like a chimp once did), and so on ...

And the problem with the current rules, as said by VIVIT, is that all the individuals of the same species are almost equal while, in reality, some individuals are far much brighter than others, exactly as for humans.
How many points of IQ would a 'learned wolf' really gain over his brethren?
With clicker training you can make many dogs do some really crazy stuff.
But they're still just regular old dogs.

It's very hard for me to envision an IQ 15 animal that has no sapience.
And AI stuff is weird anyway and most people attribute sapience to it anyway.

It even happens IRL, often.
"Stupid phone!"
(okay, that's not really sapience but kind of anthropomorphizing the phone, but... I'm just trying to make some sort of point)

This feels like something contrived that could be solved with just roleplay for the most parts.

But yeah, how does the high IQ animal rationalize its high IQ if it's just an animal but not 'humanlike sapient'?
Think of the Blorg and its 500 IQ points.

What kind of nonsentience can it do? And why does it do it? And on a 500 IQ level.
(I chose this ludicrous IQ score to see if this new trait scales, which it should, right? If a thing can have 15IQ and not be sapient, why not 50? Or 100?)
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