Are DX and IQ overly undervalued?

[johndallman]

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages matches up rather well with GURPS. Since the EU has to cope with language barriers a lot, they have to think about them realistically. Reading about this framework and the expected learning times for adults may help the OP keep their ideas grounded.

[Blind Mapmaker]

As somebody who studied English literature and linguistics up to a master's degree I have to agree with the study and the majority of voices here in the forum. Intelligence is important, study habits and practice are more important, but vastly more important are how engaging the course-work is and how you can steer your students towards immersing themselves in the language.

Another really important factor is brain plasticity. Somebody who learns more than one language as a child, especially a young child will almost always have a much easier time and achieve a much higher level of proficiency. Maybe Language Talent is a good representation of brain plasticity along with a decent IQ score.

One thing where 3rd Edition went especially wrong was how easy it is to achieve full idiomatic, non-accented mastery of a language that is indistiguishable from a native speaker by anybody but professionals. I consider most of my fellows at university IQ 12 and I haven't really met anybody who achieved that unless they learned the language in childhood. And most of them will have sunk thousands of hours in English-learning. (Many can fake an accent for shorter time periods, but eventually they all trip up.) Thinking (or even dreaming) in the other language is relatively on the other hand. Most average university students manage to do that after half a year of living in an English-speaking country at the latest.

Having said that, I do feel that IQ with Will and Perception rolled into it is grossly undervalued, DX too, but to a lesser degree. I have used Power-Ups 9: Alternate Attributes to good effect to turn the standard 4-attribute system into something that encourages less attribute-focused builds. But the language system has little to do with that.

As a parting shot: Where basic communication in stressful situations at Broken comprehension level is concerned, IQ is still relevant even in 4th edition. I did expand that a bit in an old blog post if you're interested (might contain wordpress ads depending on your ad blocker settings).

[Cheeseball]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

So you also earn points at a rate inversely proportionate to IQ?

That depends on whether or not they are able to find an academic environment that suits their needs. In the worst case, they can learn on their own (self-study) by earning points at a rate of 50%, which will always be favorable if their IQ is over 11.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Cheeseball

I am a firm believer that intelligence in the real world greatly affects the ability to learn new languages. In GURPS, a high IQ score allowed learning "too many" languages ​​for few points, while an average level required "too many" points to learn a few new language at a much worse level.

GURPS doesn't work like that. The character point is not a unit of equal utility. Having X character points does not guarantee you f(X) utility. The purpose of character points is to constrain players to a budget to keep players' choices of traits fair and consistent with the setting. "This is not a reality simulator."

If you want intelligence to limit the number and/or level of languages acquired, then impose your own restrictions. "You are limited to putting a number of character points into languages equal to (IQ - 8) × 6," or whatever formula you like. Not because there is a correlation between character points, IQ, and language ability, but because those are the limits that YOU want for YOUR setting.

[Cheeseball]

Originally Posted by malloyd

That's my point. It does NOT. It instead vastly overestimates the difference between an average and a gifted person measured against anything that has an objective standard. I don't care how gifted you are, if somebody who is capable of normal learning has spent 10 times as long studying something as you have, you are not going to be better, and yet that's an effect you can exceed with an IQ of 14 (well below what even stat normalization cultists start calling unrealistic) vs IQ 10, where you can get for 1 point (200 hours of study) what IQ 10 guy needs 12 (2400) to match. Start stretching that for the full range of normal PC IQ or DX scores (say 8 to 15) and it only gets worse.

This is exactly what I'm talking about, the average player doesn't know how important intelligence is in learning.

According to an investigation I performed as a consultant for private high schools in Brazil during the 1990s, on average, an individual with an IQ of 126+ can, academically speaking, achieve in one hour of study that which takes someone with an IQ in the normal range 4–5 hours to attain.

Bruno Campello de Souza, Professor at Federal University of Pernambuco

Talent search research suggests those around the 140 range can learn all the material from a high school course in about a third of the time it takes an average student. Profoundly gifted children (160+) can earn all of that material in half the time a person with a 140 IQ can learn it. They could learn all the material taught in grades 9–12 in less than half a year.

[sir_pudding]

Anybody who is trying to use the Binet test at all seriously isn't worth paying attention to.

And even if we do, half the time is five times less than 1/10th the time.

[sir_pudding]

You also don't see people with hundreds of hours of practice competing seriously with people with tens of thousands in careers where mastery matters and competition is significant. Like classical musicians.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Cheeseball

This is exactly what I'm talking about, the average player doesn't know how important intelligence is in learning.

GURPS Intelligence and real-world Intelligence Quotient, despite using the same abbreviation, have some serious distinctions between each other (and, arguably, real-world IQ is more akin to a "Born Academic" Talent than a measure of raw intelligence, considering how it's determined). That said, your two quotes rather strongly contradict each other, unless there's specific nuances you've opted to leave out - the first gives 4-5x learning speed for IQ 126+ (roughly +2 Standard Deviations, which many people correlate to GURPS IQ 12), while the second gives 3x learning speed for IQ 140+ (roughly +3 Standard Deviations, or IQ 13) and 6x learning speed for IQ 160+ (roughly +4 Standard Deviations, or IQ 14).

[Cheeseball]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Anybody who is trying to use the Binet test at all seriously isn't worth paying attention to.

And even if we do, half the time is five times less than 1/10th the time.

Where did you read half the time?

[Cheeseball]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

You also don't see people with hundreds of hours of practice competing seriously with people with tens of thousands in careers where mastery matters and competition is significant. Like classical musicians.

Actually yes, it's another matter that the majority of people born with certain intellectual advantages are doomed to school failure because they do not have the necessary resources to be able to take advantage of their gift...