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Old 09-27-2022, 06:26 AM   #21
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by RyanW View Post
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?
Not quite. As I understand it, Bestial is the trait that makes you act like a beast, not be as dumb as a beast. For example, a bestial dragon will see a big herd of sheep in the middle of a field, and go, "Those look tasty; I'll have one." It could be very intelligent, know language and many other things, but it lacks an understanding of how to behave in society.
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Old 09-27-2022, 08:12 AM   #22
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
Not quite. As I understand it, Bestial is the trait that makes you act like a beast, not be as dumb as a beast. For example, a bestial dragon will see a big herd of sheep in the middle of a field, and go, "Those look tasty; I'll have one." It could be very intelligent, know language and many other things, but it lacks an understanding of how to behave in society.
Right. Nonsapient is a set of cognitive limitations; Bestial is a set of moral limitations.
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Old 09-27-2022, 08:48 AM   #23
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
Not quite. As I understand it, Bestial is the trait that makes you act like a beast, not be as dumb as a beast. For example, a bestial dragon will see a big herd of sheep in the middle of a field, and go, "Those look tasty; I'll have one." It could be very intelligent, know language and many other things, but it lacks an understanding of how to behave in society.
If you take that metaphor literally that is what an Arab would think on seeing a big herd of sheep. The difference would be that the Arab would care who the sheep belongs to etc. Humans have all the instincts of bestial creatures, not being bestial is controlling oneself (and having other instincts).
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Old 09-27-2022, 11:24 AM   #24
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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If you take that metaphor literally that is what an Arab would think on seeing a big herd of sheep. The difference would be that the Arab would care who the sheep belongs to etc. Humans have all the instincts of bestial creatures, not being bestial is controlling oneself (and having other instincts).
RAW pretty explicitly says that being Bestial isn't about self-control. The dragon who eats the sheep might well be perfectly in control of its actions. If it has a reason not to eat the sheep, it could just decide not to—all Bestial does is indicate that human-like ethical concepts such as, "Those sheep belong to someone else and stealing is wrong," don't count as reasons. "I will be hunted by dragon-slayers if I antagonize the villagers," would count as a reason, though it depends on whether the dragon has an in-character way of knowing that eating sheep would make enemies. Bestial might get in way of that by making the concept of property difficult to understand, but it doesn't prevent the dragon from making acting on rational choices within the range of concepts it does understand.

Contrast this with Uncontrollable Appetite (Livestock). If the dragon had that, it would need to make a self-control roll not to eat the sheep, even if it weren't Bestial, perfectly understood the concept of property, was best friends with the shepherd, and would feel guilty about it afterward.
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Old 09-27-2022, 12:27 PM   #25
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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RAW pretty explicitly says that being Bestial isn't about self-control. The dragon who eats the sheep might well be perfectly in control of its actions. If it has a reason not to eat the sheep, it could just decide not to—all Bestial does is indicate that human-like ethical concepts such as, "Those sheep belong to someone else and stealing is wrong," don't count as reasons. "I will be hunted by dragon-slayers if I antagonize the villagers," would count as a reason, though it depends on whether the dragon has an in-character way of knowing that eating sheep would make enemies. Bestial might get in way of that by making the concept of property difficult to understand, but it doesn't prevent the dragon from making acting on rational choices within the range of concepts it does understand.
Of course, for such a character, the appropriate response to "I will be hunted by dragon-slayers if they catch me eating their sheep" often isn't "Don't eat the sheep" - it's "Don't get caught eating the sheep." If the dragon can't figure out a way to eat the sheep without the villagers knowing it ate the sheep, in that case it most likely won't eat the sheep.

But, yeah, a character could absolutely be both Bestial and fully sapient.
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Old 09-27-2022, 12:40 PM   #26
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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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.
So basically, treat it as a Limitation to IQ instead of as a Disadvantage. You keep the Will, Per, and social skills (12/level), but lose the academic, technical, and brainier “adventure” skills. That would be a -40% Limitation to IQ.

It's an interesting idea; but there's still the matter of languages to consider. Even PU9 assumes that the capacity for language comes with IQ 6+.
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Old 09-27-2022, 02:51 PM   #27
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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It's very hard for me to envision an IQ 15 animal that has no sapience ...
They'd be really good at doing things that animals know how to do while still not being great at things that humans can do. They know where, how, and when to hunt, how to avoid predators, and so on. And in the wild, they learn to do it the hard way!

In some sense, that takes intelligence. You might be tempted to chalk that up to instinct, but the line between that and intelligence is ambiguous at best, and GURPS doesn't have an Instinct attribute.


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This feels like something contrived that could be solved with just roleplay for the most parts.
That seems to be the answer you give any time someone presents you with a new mechanical concept. It reminds me of an old acquaintance who thought GURPS as a whole was great big pile of pointless crunch. I remember concept of damage types: "Isn't it obvious that a sword cuts and club crushes? Why do you need rules for this?"

At the time, I thought that was mind-numbingly stupid thing to ask. But I later realized that, on some level, he was right! It is obvious that a sword cuts and a club crushes. And if you just want to pretend to be Zorro or Guts or whoever, you don't need rules to tell you what your sword does, and you certainly don't need rules to describe the difference between Zorro's sword and Guts'! You know that one goes zippity-zip and the other goes CHOP. And yet we have rules for tip slash in Martial Arts and stats for gigantic swords in Fantasy-Tech.

Why? Why do have mechanics for this stuff when we already have the perfectly functional mental images of zippity-zip and CHOP right there? I can only speak for myself, but I like them because they lend form and substance to those mental images. I didn't realize this until I tried FATE—a favorite system of the friend I mentioned earlier—and walked with an impression to the effect of, "This is really bland and blah and doesn't feel like anything," even though I had a great character concept and a good GM who was good at describing things. Years later, I still feel like I've given that system pretty short shrift, but I've never felt motivated enough to correct that because GURPS is the system commands my attention and HERO is the one draws my curiosity.

How does this relate to animals and IQ? Well… the way GURPS represents nonsapience actually flies right in the face of my mental image of animal intelligence. I don't think sapience and intelligence are the same thing. I don't think that the reason animals don't use language is simply because they're not smart enough. It's just that their brains aren't built for it, just like a dog's forepaws aren't built to grasp and use tools. Again, that's not low DX, that is No Fine Manipulators. GURPS already has "You simply cannot do this general type of thing," and it isn't low attributes, except in this specific case.

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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?)
The Borg is, by GURPS' definition, sapient. It can speak. It can declare that it will assimilate you and assure you that resistance is futile. And it clearly has some understanding of technology—how else does it install cybernetic implants in people to assimilate them?

Also, the IQ scale breaks even got sapient when you go much higher than 20. Don't be silly.
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Old 09-27-2022, 04:07 PM   #28
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by VIVIT View Post
They'd be really good at doing things that animals know how to do while still not being great at things that humans can do. They know where, how, and when to hunt, how to avoid predators, and so on. And in the wild, they learn to do it the hard way!

In some sense, that takes intelligence. You might be tempted to chalk that up to instinct, but the line between that and intelligence is ambiguous at best, and GURPS doesn't have an Instinct attribute.
I think that's what maximara was suggesting: use PU9 to create an Instinct Attribute that replaces IQ in animals. 12 points per level; it's just that you need IQ, not Instinct, to be able to comprehend languages.

Buying up from 0, 10 IQ costs 200 points while 10 Instinct would cost 120 points; so on that basis, I'd say swapping out IQ for Instinct should be a -80 Disadvantage.

Also: “Poorly educated individuals who can barely get by in their native tongue should take the point difference between their actual level and Native level as a disadvantage.” (Basic Set p.24). With this in mind, bump it up to -86 points: -80 for Instinct instead of IQ, and another -6 points for a complete lack of even a native language. Reinforce the latter with a Taboo Trait.

And perhaps there should be the occasional exception, such as the chimpanzee who learns sign language to at least a Broken level of comprehension; possible even Accented. Furthermore, there might be the occasional animal that can learn “TL N/A” skills, such as a beaver with some very rudimentary Engineering. They seem quite adept at constructing dams.
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Old 09-27-2022, 09:31 PM   #29
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

I've sometimes thought of doing this by declaring that "IQ" covers only the types of reasoning that humans are unusually good at (e.g. language, other things involving representing things by symbols, mathematics, using tools and making things), and floating anything else to Per. (This would make IQ similar to Intelligence in Dungeons and Dragons). Possibly making the Per-based skills one level harder than their IQ-based counterparts (Average becomes Hard, etc.), which would make it a little more difficult for animals to be cleverer than humans at those skills. I've never tested all this in play, though.

That does mean lumping acute senses and non-human-type intelligence in together, though. And it also still has the difficulty that VIVIT pointed out that you can't straightforwardly represent an unusually clever animal (other than by raising Per, but that also gives it super-senses) - the IQ range is so narrow that an IQ 3 animal is radically different from an IQ 4 animal.

Maximara's idea of splitting up IQ is rather similar, but gets rid of that to some extent.

It might be easier to list the IQ skills that an animal with this "Nonsapient" disadvantage could do as well as a human than to list the ones it couldn't. That might give a clearer picture of what an animal character with this disad would look like.
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Old 09-27-2022, 10:34 PM   #30
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by Lovewyrm View Post
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?

<snip>
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you sure you haven't confused "sentient" with "sapient"? The remarks about "why would such a character do these things" sound more as if you're describing a "nonsentient" character.

Sentient = conscious, aware of surroundings, able to think for itself, not a mindless robot or acting only automatically.
Sapient = "intelligent" in the way that a human is, able to use complex language, make technology etc.

(It could also be that we have different opinions about how much animals are capable of).
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