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Old 09-27-2022, 11:18 PM   #31
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by Inky View Post
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.
It's a 3e book, but you might take a look at GURPS Bunnies & Burrows as a starting point.

Frankly, I won't be surprised if the list of mental skills turns out to be really short. The uses of the Instinct substitute Attribute are likely to be almost exclusively Perception and Will rolls, with a few social skills, some survival skills, a few practical things like Area Knowledge, for instance, and not much else.
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Old 10-01-2022, 05:11 PM   #32
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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.



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.


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.
I'm not opposed to crunch as a whole. Just when it seems kind of strange or pointless.

And I am not trying to be silly with that high IQ example.
I consider it quite important, after all, if this were to make it into the rules then I'd have to deal with that.

Thus, having a 500IQ creature with the 'nonsapient' -100 thing slapped on it.
How did it get that high of an IQ without being sapient.

You bring up no fine manipulators, but you can slap that on virtually anything and there is probably an easy rationalization for it.
Perhaps some creatures that cannot manipulate anything can still go to space on the backs of a more nimble species who wouldn't be able to put together a spaceship without the guidance of the bad-at-gripping ones.

And yes even 20 or 10 IQ is tricky for me.
They say dogs are as smart as three year old humans or something.
How would that work out?
Raise the dogs IQ to 10 but then hamstringing it with the disad?
Or the child, would it suffer from the disad too?
Is this a solution for roleplay, and just 'dealing with it'?
(Dogs being dogs and while they are low IQ their doggy nature we all know can be considered intelligent and capable enough, for a beast? While the infant is simply just not fully developed, etc?)

How do high IQ animals have high IQ of that of a human and the not comparable but equivalent, of 10, etc...but trigger the need, so to speak for this disad to be a necessity, making them non-sapient-on-a-human-level?
How often does it crop up? Too?

Just wanting to know the point of it all when one can just go: Yeah it's a monkey with 6IQ but he's really smart, for a monkey.
And now there's a whole race of it.
And now they're actually IQ 10.
Which is okay,...but:
Since they are not really sapient like humans...what's the point from a roleplaying perspective?

Who would use this as their PCs disad without risking roleplay breakage.
Would it be tied to an 'oracle' like table where the player rolls for actions?
(Not sarcasm, actual question)
That could generate some 'smart animal like' play through the proxy of the table for actions, elevating it above something low IQ but still constraining it.

But if so then you can just use that table and say: Yeah, I'm going to half play this character off a random table and roleplay the solutions to the problems it brings, and embrace the problems to other things, too.

I'm not against crunch, but I am also pro roleplay.

Is this to get 100 points off of such a character?
If so...where would these points be put?
And if these points are put into extraordinary capabilities that go far and beyond a -35 point housecat, then why isn't it evolved higher?
And/or what is it doing with all that capability...while staying non-sapient.

This is both either confusing, or smells like free points cooked up somewhere.
LIke "I'm a Jedi but I also was a Sith before and I got better but I can still cast force lightning and do force chokes"

To:
"I'm a nonsapient but extremely capable cat with 100 bonus points to spare on top of the (200) points for the campaign and a high IQ so I can still roleplay it cause it's not a potato, not sapient but I also bought these psyker abilities and it's gonna be awesome."

On the point crock front.
And the confusion front I have (hopefully) explained too.

An extraordinarily capable cheetah doesn't necessarily gain IQ points due to special circumstances, and can simply be considered, special trained.
Like a dog that hops backwards on its hind legs, while standing upright.
That doesn't make the dog smarter, he could always do it, he and his kind just didn't end up in a situation usually, so they don't do it naturally.

So, to me, there is no need for this special disad.
If you want some really smart ferrets as familiars, then you can have them, even if they're still only IQ 5 or whatever.
They don't have to be IQ 10 and then toned down.

And if you want to play a ferret as a PC that has a meaningful capability of roleplay (just like too many disads as the basic set puts it turns into a circus)
Then you simply cannot be a regular ferret and have to be some sort of uplifted species, and at that point you can just handwave it all, with other traits too.
"IQ15 but stress atavism, kleptomania, homebrew disad with a self control roll for squeezing into tight spaces" etc.
(see, not opposed to crunch :P)

If you pile enough on them to fine tune your bestial ways, then you might even get more points out of them while at the same time having potentially more believability and flavor points to jump off off than this blanket deal.

Edit:
Ooooh, what about Gaspode from the Discworld?
I don't have that book, but maybe he's in there.
If so, how is he implemented?

Last edited by Lovewyrm; 10-01-2022 at 05:18 PM.
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Old 10-01-2022, 06:52 PM   #33
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by Lovewyrm View Post
And yes even 20 or 10 IQ is tricky for me.
They say dogs are as smart as three year old humans or something.
How would that work out?
Raise the dogs IQ to 10 but then hamstringing it with the disad?
Or the child, would it suffer from the disad too?
Is this a solution for roleplay, and just 'dealing with it'?
(Dogs being dogs and while they are low IQ their doggy nature we all know can be considered intelligent and capable enough, for a beast? While the infant is simply just not fully developed, etc?)
Well, that "as intelligent as three-year-old humans" soundbite may be based on assessing them on the kind of tasks humans do a lot of. In some ways, if you think about it, a dog is clearly more intelligent than a three-year-old child. If you turned a dog loose in a town he was familiar with and left him to find his own way home, he'd probably get there... a three-year-old, less so.

"Fudge it by roleplaying it in a way other than what the numbers say" is always a possible answer, but trying to alter the numbers so that they fit is also a possible answer here.

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Originally Posted by Lovewyrm View Post
How do high IQ animals have high IQ of that of a human and the not comparable but equivalent, of 10, etc...but trigger the need, so to speak for this disad to be a necessity, making them non-sapient-on-a-human-level?
How often does it crop up?
I think, though I'm not sure, that the idea with this plan is that an average animal will have IQ 10 but with Nonsapient, thus making them IQ 10 only for things that animals can do as well as humans can.

So, in your example above of the kid and the dog, the dog would have Navigation-10/TL0 (and/or Area Knowledge-10), because navigation (without technological aids, at least) is not a "human speciality" so an averagely intelligent, grown-up dog will be roughly as good at it as an averagely intelligent, grown-up human. But in things that are human specialities, such as anything involving using tools, he'll be down to effective skill 2 (unable to learn the skill so default of IQ-4, with an Incompetence penalty of a further -4).

The kid, on the other hand, doesn't have Nonsapient (because she's human and has the wiring for all the human "superpowers" of language etc.), but has a low overall GURPS IQ, because she's only three - therefore, Navigation will be really low along with all her other IQ skills. But she won't be any worse at "human speciality" skills than at anything else. It does work out. (I'm not sure that this couldn't be done in less complicated ways, but it does work out).

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Originally Posted by Lovewyrm View Post
Just wanting to know the point of it all when one can just go: Yeah it's a monkey with 6IQ but he's really smart, for a monkey.
And now there's a whole race of it.
And now they're actually IQ 10.
Which is okay,...but:
Since they are not really sapient like humans...what's the point from a roleplaying perspective?

Who would use this as their PCs disad without risking roleplay breakage.
Would it be tied to an 'oracle' like table where the player rolls for actions?
(Not sarcasm, actual question)
That could generate some 'smart animal like' play through the proxy of the table for actions, elevating it above something low IQ but still constraining it.

But if so then you can just use that table and say: Yeah, I'm going to half play this character off a random table and roleplay the solutions to the problems it brings, and embrace the problems to other things, too.
Why would it act at random? Do animals normally act at random?

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Originally Posted by Lovewyrm View Post
This is both either confusing, or smells like free points cooked up somewhere.
LIke "I'm a Jedi but I also was a Sith before and I got better but I can still cast force lightning and do force chokes"

To:
"I'm a nonsapient but extremely capable cat with 100 bonus points to spare on top of the (200) points for the campaign and a high IQ so I can still roleplay it cause it's not a potato, not sapient but I also bought these psyker abilities and it's gonna be awesome."

On the point crock front.
Fair point. Although pretty much the same thing happens with the current rules, where you get back a large chunk of points for an animal character having low IQ. See, for instance, this thread about Butterscotch the sabre-toothed tiger.

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Originally Posted by Lovewyrm View Post
Ooooh, what about Gaspode from the Discworld?
I don't have that book, but maybe he's in there.
If so, how is he implemented?
Ooh, good point. I don't have the book either. But Gaspode really did have human-like intelligence (could talk, read, work as a theatrical agent, etc.). So he'd probably just be a straightforward IQ 10 (or more) without any equivalent of Nonsapient, just with paws.
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Old 10-01-2022, 07:59 PM   #34
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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I didn't base the cost of the disadvantage on the sum of its explicitly enumerated parts; I based it on Decreased IQ 5 [−100] + Taboo Trait (Fixed IQ) [0].
Unless I'm missing something, it should be [-50], by that logic. Normal animal templates only have reduced IQ but not reduced Will and Per, and Decreased IQ 5 without Decreased Per 5 and Decreased Will 5 is [-50]. That would put animal characters with this disadvantage back in the same area of point-values as the standard animal templates with low IQs, if that's what you were aiming at.
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Old 10-02-2022, 12:56 AM   #35
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Unless I'm missing something, it should be [-50], by that logic. Normal animal templates only have reduced IQ but not reduced Will and Per, and Decreased IQ 5 without Decreased Per 5 and Decreased Will 5 is [-50]. That would put animal characters with this disadvantage back in the same area of point-values as the standard animal templates with low IQs, if that's what you were aiming at.
Hmm, I guess you're right. But I think the restrictions this disadvantage imposes are broad enough that it's worth −100 on its own. 100 is a nice, round number, too.
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Old 10-02-2022, 02:35 AM   #36
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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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.
Actually, you aren't supposed to apply Limitations to disadvantages that aren't Mitigators (Power-Ups 8: Limitations p 6)

*Drake has IQ 4 [-120] and IQ +6 (academic, technical, and brainier “adventure” skills, -40%) [48], for a total of [-72]
*Morgan has IQ 10 [0] and IQ -6 (academic, technical, and brainier “adventure” skills, -40%) [-96] for only [-96]

To prevent this kind of point bonanza you have to treat "Animal IQ" as [8/level]

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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+.
Based on how some animals were written up (DF 5: Allies)
"Animal IQ" is effectively [10/level]

Anaconda — IQ: 6 [-80]; Will: 12 [30]; Per: 11 [25]

Note that Will is bought up from IQ 6 not IQ 10 and Per is the same way. (pg 6)
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Old 10-02-2022, 03:30 AM   #37
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

Okay; so it's not a Limitation. But it's like a Limitation, in that the fact that Instinct can do less per level means that it should cost less per level.

According to the “Different Strokes?” box in PU9 (p.47), it's possible for some characters to have different attributes than everyone else. “This should be indicated by a marker that costs points (like Amphibious) where the results are favorable, has zero cost (like Semi-Aquatic) where they're a tradeoff, or give back points (like Aquatic) where there unfavorable.”

The idea I'm suggesting is to completely remove IQ from animals, and to add an Instinct Attribute to take over many of its functions. That's a net unfavorable tradeoff, because Instinct 10 can't do as many things as IQ can. It's why I originally described it as a Limitation; but it's probably better to describe it as a substitute Attribute.

You're right that DF5 prices “Animal IQ” the same as human IQ. But I don't find that at all a convincing argument, because I doubt that the guys writing DF5 were thinking in terms of what animal intelligence actually entails; they were basically thinking in the same terms as Basic Set that animal IQ is “merely” a low IQ. The whole point of this thread is to explore the possibility that what animals use differs in kind from what humans use, not just (or even) in degree. In particular, it assumes that whatever animals have in place of human IQ should also have a score in the 8–13 range, instead of insisting that animals should be stuck in the 1–5 range.

Removing IQ from animals and replacing it with a new Instinct Attribute that consists of Will, Perception, and a comparative handful of mental skills that don't require the higher mental training facilities that humans have (thus definitely excluding academic and technical skills) definitely captures the spirit of what the OP is going for.

The one thing remaining is how to price the “marker” I referred to before. Selling IQ down to 0 would be –200 points; buying Instinct up to 10 would cost 120 points (because without the academic and technical skills, Instinct should cost 12 points per level). Combined, that's a net –80 points. Except that the other thing you lose when switching from IQ to Instinct is your native language, for another –6 points. Thus, my suggestion to make “replace IQ with Instinct” a –86 point Disadvantage. While –100 points is indeed a nice, round number, it's arguably too much of a bargain.

On the other hand, the –100 points approach originally suggested assumes that an animal's “IQ” should continue to be priced at 20/level, rather than the 12/level that I'm proposing for Instinct. By the time you buy the Attribute up to 12, the “it's just a –100 point Disadvantage” approach has lost all pricing edge over the “it's a –86 Disadvantage to replace the 20/level IQ with a 12/level Instinct Attribute”.
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Old 10-02-2022, 04:16 AM   #38
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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You're right that DF5 prices “Animal IQ” the same as human IQ. But I don't find that at all a convincing argument, because I doubt that the guys writing DF5 were thinking in terms of what animal intelligence actually entails; they were basically thinking in the same terms as Basic Set that animal IQ is “merely” a low IQ.
Well IMHO the DF5 writers were working from the stand point that is how GURPS has handled IQ from the get go as shown in the sample PDF of the Classic: Bestiary

Here is how IQ was presented in the Classic Basic Set 3e (pg 13):
*1 — Vegetable
*2 — Insect
*3 — Reptile
*4 — Horse
*5 — Dog
*6 — Chimpanzee

The addition of Wis and Per changed things but as far as IQ goes that has been the base line.
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Old 10-02-2022, 04:18 AM   #39
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

Right. But that's not what this thread is assuming. It's assuming that the primary purpose that “IQ” serves for animals is Will and Perception; it provides the baseline for these as well as serving as the baseline for a handful of skills that it makes sense for animals to have. And in that regard, it doesn't make sense for animals to be operating in the low single digits. They're quite as accept as humans when it comes to Will and Perception and that handful of non-physical skills that animals can have.
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Old 10-02-2022, 05:29 AM   #40
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

Some examples from GURPS Bunnies and Burrows of some skills that animals ought to be able to learn. Keep in mind that the bunnies in question are fantasy creatures, in that they're far more clever than a real rabbit would be; but they're still far closer to regular animals than they are to humans. Still, some of these skills out to be thought of as “cinematic skills” where animals are concerned: they're not things that your typical animal could learn.

Acrobatics
Acting (to mimic the voices of other rabbits)
Agronomy (what pikas do in terms of cultivating and harvesting mushrooms)
Anthropology (for animals who have some vague comprehension of the mysteries of humans)
Architecture/TLR (for constructing burrows or dams)
Artist
Botany/TLR
Brawling
Camouflage
Climbing
Disguise
Engineer/TLR
Merchant
Meteorology/TLR
Scrounging
Survival
Swimming
Tracking
Traps
Zoology

This isn't a complete list; and as I said, is from a 3e book, so it probably needs adaption in order to apply to a 4e animal. But it illustrates some ideas of what sorts of skills might be learnable by animals. And the same sorts of arguments for why Will and Perception should be bought up in traditional GURPS games would also apply to most of these sorts of skills. So instead of buying all of these individually, wouldn't it be easier to just set “IQ” to the same range of “IQ” in humans.

(I'm getting some sleep.)
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