[Basic] Nature versus Nurture - DX and IQ

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Wavefunction

Hey guys,

Now, first of all, this is a contentious subject, there's no right answer, and everyone has a different opinion. I know that, I just want to hear some different viewpoints out of curiosity.

That said, how much of DX and IQ do you think is down to genetics, and how much to experience? Assuming you believe DX and IQ can be learnt at all.

My own view is that DX and IQ can be learnt, that learning a wide variety of dexterity-based skills is likely to improve your overall coordination and, well, dexterity. If I had to put numbers on it, I'd say, assuming a human max of 16, 2 or 3 levels can be acquired through experience, the rest is genetic.

That's my view, what's yours?

IQ, as used by GURPS, has to be learnable since it is a measure of experience and not potential. DX is probably learnable in real life and definitely so in GURPS. As far as Nature vs. Nuture is concerned, the jury is still out on that one in the real world, so most views are tenable.

For myself, I take the view that genetics are ‘merely’ potential. If you don’t ‘work at it’, you never reach the potential that your genetics say you could have. Consequently, I set the maximum stat achievable (in 3e GURPS) at 20 (40 for ST, as suggested in one of the Compendiums) and then work backwards.

If I was going to separate out Nurture from Nature, which I currently don’t, I would roll two averaging dice (an averaging die comes from wargaming and is a six-sided die numbered: 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5), renumbering the values as: 2 = -2; 3 = -1; 4 = +1; 5 = +2 and using them as the potential range from Nature. Thus, Nature could provide a range of potentials from 12 (-4, -2 on both dice) to 20 (+4, +2 on both dice) with 16 as a genetic average man. (For ST the range would be 32 to 40 with an average of 36.) [This would be for random NPCs. PCs can buy their stat up to 20/40 if they want but, based on their intentions, they should have some idea how ‘special’ their character is, genetically speaking.] The base value of 10 represents what most people achieve once they reach adulthood, if they didn’t make any special effort/ have greater genetic potential than average, depending on the character’s backstory.

Most characters never achieve their Natural potential through Nurture because they never undergo a regime that is specifically directed at improving the underlying attribute. As most posters have indicated, most regimes that a character will be Nurtured under aim at improving skills and techniques or, occasionally, adding advantages. On a theoretical level, it ought to be possible to create a regime that directly addresses the underlying attribute and would result in the character achieving his maximum Natural potential.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Wavefunction

[*]Eugenics. You're creating an evil eugenics cult that's existed for millennia, how high could you theoretically put the attributes just down to selection.

See page 10 of Bio-tech.

[Skarg]

I think it depends a lot on what you mean by DX & IQ, what you mean by the different numeric values, what values you tend to assign to your game world's population (e.g. do you have plenty of 0-25 point NPCs, or are you an "oh yeah, special ops people have 500 points" kind of GM), and how detailed the character is.

For me, most NPCs have DX & IQ at 9 to 11. 12-14 is about as high as most people get, especially for IQ. DX 15's are in the top 1%. 16 is really exceptional. 17 is amazing. 18 is a paragon. 19 is incredible and one of the best anywhere. 20... I don't know that I have ever given anyone DX 20 in any of my realistic or semi-realistic campaigns.

DX & IQ are both semi-abstract combinations of things, for me. A lot of physical control and mental ability is about being aware and actually using your abilities, which is largely subconscious.

I also think that in a really detailed character, it makes sense to not just have high DX & IQ, since that applies to everything, and instead have aptitude in types of things, but not in others. But that takes a lot more energy to think about and detail, so I think it's helpful to have characters at different levels of detail. For low-detail characters, their DX & IQ represents to me the level of their proficiencies. The IQ 14 shopkeeper isn't going to have IQ 14 necessarily as a base for non-merchant skills, because really he's probably IQ 10-12 with 2-4 levels of merchant aptitude/experience. But that's sort of a bitch to get right, and/or calls for a different skill/talent system.

One thing I've often done is have detailed characters have ideal max attributes. That is, it seems to me that for each person, if you gave them the best training and magic/techno help to develop their ST, DX, IQ and HT, they would tend to arrive at a certain max level, partcularly for ST based on their size. That's generally several points higher than what they'll start as if they are starting an adventuring career and haven't been in some sort of optimal training program. I let those characters train up to their maximums, if they can, but then make it much harder, and temporary, to rise above them. And if they stop maintaining their training, they will also start to fall below their maximums.

I think most people can get up to IQ 13-14, but in reality people think _differently_, so I mean in their areas of aptitude. Maybe up to 15-16 if they are really pushing it somehow.

For DX, I think it depends a lot on where you set your numbers. For me, I tend to think DX is more dependent on nature than IQ. In fact, I'd say it's one of the types of intelligence that exist. So when I say most people can get to IQ 13-14, I mean in their area of aptitude, not in ALL (the way IQ is in GURPS by default). So the people who can get to DX 13-14 are the ones with some physical aptitude, though I think maybe you could force people to find it by training, or fool them with years of required Feldenkrais or something. But I also think that people with enough aptitude could get up to DX 16 or even 18 (but then they're world-class athletes). But to me that's like how I'd let people get to 18 or higher in IQ-based things if the part above 14 is coming from aptitude.

And in something like Art, I think the high values are arbitrary and you may as well have a high upper range, since that just gives you more points of comparison. I don't find it unbalancing to have artist savants with art aptitude at +10 or +14, as long as I interpret the numbers to have realistic outcomes. DX requires harder limits because I don't want the combat system or physical feat rules to break into superhuman or bad-action-movie realms, and IQ requires harder limits because of the skill default system.