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Old 09-25-2022, 05:25 PM   #1
VIVIT
 
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Default Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

For a while I've considered the possibility of disconnecting the concept of sapience from the IQ statistic. Currently, animals need huge increases in Per and Will just to function. That can easily be solved with independent Per and Will, but it leaves a different question. Should we even be representing sapience with low IQ to begin with? It's a qualitative difference:
Quote:
Originally Posted by B15
Sapience is defined as the ability to use tools and language. In GURPS, this requires at least IQ 6. Those with IQ 5 or less cannot learn technological skills (see p. 168) or possess Languages (see p. 23) – not even the initial Language that most characters get for free. They can still communicate primitive concepts (such as hunger or danger) through gesture or vocalization, and may be trained to respond to a few commands (see Pets and Trained Animals, p. 458).
Other than ST, which is the odd one out because it scales with size, IQ is the only attribute that's consistently bought down this far, and when it is, it isn't to make the character worse at IQ-related stuff; it's to make them nonsapient. Animal IQ is kind of useless for the normal purpose of the attribute: something to roll against when you need to test almost any kind of brainpower, even things like memory or the use of advantages like Healing that are based on IQ. And even if you did make animal-level IQ useful for those purposes, e.g. by being really generous with difficulty modifiers, the presence of Taboo Trait (Fixed IQ) on the animal mentality meta-traits precludes you from representing some animals of the same species as smarter than others.

This has prompted me to attempt a writeup of Nonsapience as a disadvantage proper, partly modeled after the existing disadvantage representing a lack of the other edge humans have over most animals: No Fine Manipulators.
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Nonsapient (Exotic, Mental)
−100 points
Your mind is ill suited to human-like cognitive function. You aren't necessarily stupid (low IQ), but your intelligence is more specialized, intuitive, and instinctual—useful for helping you survive in your ecological niche, but less applicable to things like language or technology. You experience the effects of Dyslexia, Innumerate, and Non-Iconographic, and have Incompetence with all technological skills. Mark your native TL as "N/A".

Additionally, your comprehension level with all Languages—spoken, written, or signed—is fixed at "None". You can learn (or be taught) to recognize specific words and phrases and associate them with specific contexts, but you can't break down sentences grammatically, and you have no sense of abstract, generalizable semantics. For example, you might know from experience what to do when someone shouts "Fetch!" and throws something, but wouldn't even notice the word being said in the context of, "Fetch me the rolling pin."

This trait doesn't include Cannot Speak! Unless you have that disadvantage too, you can also learn to say set phrases—even deliberately, to elicit specific reactions from listeners! But you don't know the actual meaning of the sounds you're making. "Polly want a cracker!" is just the thing you say to get the humans to give you that tasty crunchy thing—you don't necessarily realize that "Polly" refers to you, "cracker" refers to the crunchy thing, and "want" expresses the subjective experience motivating you to attempt to get the humans to give you the crunchy thing—nor do you understand why "Cracker want a Polly!" would mean something different.

This trait qualifies you to buy IQ at a −40% limitation, just like No Fine Manipulators does for DX and ST.

This trait replaces the rules for IQ and sapience given on on p. B15. It also replaces Taboo Trait (Fixed IQ) in the Domestic Animal and Wild Animal meta-traits (p. B263), decreasing the values of those meta-traits to [−130]. To compensate, add at least 5 levels of racial IQ to published templates of nonsapient creatures. Leave Per and Will the same. Optionally, apply Limitation: Nonsapient (−40%) to any levels of IQ reduction that remain.
Anything I've overlooked?

Last edited by VIVIT; 10-09-2022 at 12:05 PM.
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Old 09-25-2022, 05:37 PM   #2
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

I can't evaluate mechanics, but I am stealing this for the same reason you made it.
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Old 09-25-2022, 10:45 PM   #3
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

I think this is a great feature. I would add that there is room for a few gradations of this. At very least, it may do to have mitigations and modifiers, such as _semi-sapient_, which would reduce the point value but up your personal capacity to something like a great ape or some other animals.

Or perhaps add some clarifications for how the IQ scale works for non-sapients. Maybe IQ 10 with Non-sapient is something like a dolphin, ape, or elephant, while 8 puts you more in the bright dog range, and by the time you get to the 1-2 range it's invertebrates and such.

And then you have the option of going higher. What's IQ 12 Non-sapient? IQ 20? Maybe some kind of highly, highly specialized artificial intelligence?
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Old 09-26-2022, 05:31 AM   #4
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by PTTG View Post
I think this is a great feature. I would add that there is room for a few gradations of this. At very least, it may do to have mitigations and modifiers, such as _semi-sapient_, which would reduce the point value but up your personal capacity to something like a great ape or some other animals.
This is a good point, and part of the reason why I started this thread—so I could workshop ideas about how this disad might be too strict and/or not strict enough for the various types of character that would have it, how it could be altered to allow for more flexibility of character concept, etc.

Quote:
Or perhaps add some clarifications for how the IQ scale works for non-sapients. Maybe IQ 10 with Non-sapient is something like a dolphin, ape, or elephant, while 8 puts you more in the bright dog range, and by the time you get to the 1-2 range it's invertebrates and such.
Part of my reason for coming up with this trait is so that we don't need to worry about the scaling of IQ. Under this rule, we don't base animal IQ levels on current scientific theories about which animals are the Smart Ones; we base it on the same thing we base human IQ levels on: how good do we want this character to be at IQ-related things? And we do this on a specimen (i.e. character) level, not a species (i.e. racial template) level. The questions of "what type of IQ-related things are animals capable of, should this differ from species to species, and if so, how?" remain open, but by representing things like nonsapience as traits, we can treat those questions as qualitative (like they actually are) rather than graded and quasi-quantitative.

Ideally, this should let us assess the point value of individual palettes of mental capabilities in terms of their actual utility (on an Ally if not on a PC) rather than pricing them in lockstep with some approximate mapping between GURPS IQ and the current scientific estimate of the creature's general intelligence. That's not what GURPS IQ is really for—which is also why I'd recommend against giving any creature an IQ score in the 1-2 range. Once an attribute gets that low, it ceases to have meaning as an attribute. Are you planning to roll against that IQ? If not, then just add Nonsentient [−200] or something and leave the IQ field blank. IQ is as irrelevant to a sponge as FP is to a machine.
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Old 09-26-2022, 08:54 AM   #5
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by VIVIT View Post
Anything I've overlooked?
Alright:
-> Allowing Cannot Speak to coexist with "Language is meaningless to you" feels an awful lot like double dipping. You take Cannot Speak to block your character from speaking. You upgrade it to Mute to block your character from making any noise at all.
-> Chimpanzees and other apes will end up at IQ 11 if you add 5 points of IQ to them. Not sure if that fits your goal.
-> You may need to include incompetence in several other skills that are pseudo-technological, like Accounting, Carpentry, Cooking, Esoteric Medicine, Hobby Skill, History, Knot Tying, Merchant, etc.
-> In fact I might go as far to replace various incompetences with, "You may only learn and default to skills on your template and a GM defined list of skills."
-> Let's just look at the math a little: Dyslexia [-10], Non-Iconographic [-10], Innumerate [-5], Cannot Speak [-15], "Cannot Sign" [-5?], "Cannot learn any technological skill" [-55?]. That seems like a bit of an overload on that last one there.
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Old 09-26-2022, 09:49 AM   #6
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
Alright:
-> Allowing Cannot Speak to coexist with "Language is meaningless to you" feels an awful lot like double dipping. You take Cannot Speak to block your character from speaking. You upgrade it to Mute to block your character from making any noise at all.
-> Chimpanzees and other apes will end up at IQ 11 if you add 5 points of IQ to them. Not sure if that fits your goal.
-> You may need to include incompetence in several other skills that are pseudo-technological, like Accounting, Carpentry, Cooking, Esoteric Medicine, Hobby Skill, History, Knot Tying, Merchant, etc.
-> In fact I might go as far to replace various incompetences with, "You may only learn and default to skills on your template and a GM defined list of skills."
-> Let's just look at the math a little: Dyslexia [-10], Non-Iconographic [-10], Innumerate [-5], Cannot Speak [-15], "Cannot Sign" [-5?], "Cannot learn any technological skill" [-55?]. That seems like a bit of an overload on that last one there.
Also, Low Tech Level becomes much more disadvantageous the higher the TL of the campaign. Having a TL0 is less of a problem for an animal as a character in a neolithic game than for an animal in a Star Wars game. An across-the-board non-sapient disadvantage is a much better deal in a Dungeon Fantasy game than in a Psi Wars game.
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Old 09-26-2022, 10:07 AM   #7
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by JulianLW View Post
Also, Low Tech Level becomes much more disadvantageous the higher the TL of the campaign. Having a TL0 is less of a problem for an animal as a character in a neolithic game than for an animal in a Star Wars game. An across-the-board non-sapient disadvantage is a much better deal in a Dungeon Fantasy game than in a Psi Wars game.
Note this is already true under the current rules, which automatically include "TL Nothing" (worse than TL0, which at least lets you use fire and stone tools) alongside sufficiently reduced Intelligence.
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Old 09-26-2022, 01:29 PM   #8
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Note this is already true under the current rules, which automatically include "TL Nothing" (worse than TL0, which at least lets you use fire and stone tools) alongside sufficiently reduced Intelligence.
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.
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Old 09-26-2022, 01:56 PM   #9
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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.
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.
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Old 09-26-2022, 02:34 PM   #10
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Default Re: Disconnecting Sapience from IQ

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Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
Alright:
-> Allowing Cannot Speak to coexist with "Language is meaningless to you" feels an awful lot like double dipping. You take Cannot Speak to block your character from speaking. You upgrade it to Mute to block your character from making any noise at all.
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.

Quote:
-> Chimpanzees and other apes will end up at IQ 11 if you add 5 points of IQ to them. Not sure if that fits your goal.
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%). And if we assume, as GURPS does, that apes are just smarter than other animals, it's only reasonable to give them IQ 11 (Nonsapient, −40%). Think about it. If IQ 11 means "above-average intelligence" and Nonsapient (−40%) means "the type of intelligence that animals have", then IQ 11 (Nonsapient, −40%) means "above-average intelligence for an animal"!

Quote:
-> You may need to include incompetence in several other skills that are pseudo-technological, like…
I guess you're right insofar as I haven't covered all of the incompetences that should logically apply. But I didn't add anymore to my writeup because I was trying to keep it as close to RAW nonsapience as possible.

Quote:
-> In fact I might go as far to replace various incompetences with, "You may only learn and default to skills on your template and a GM defined list of skills."
This is a decent idea, but I chose Incompetence (plus a few "blanket incompetence" disadvantages) for a reason: incompetence doesn't forbid defaults, it just adds an additional −4 to the default penalty and stops you from putting points in the skill. This leaves behind the potential for a nonsapient character to scramble for modifiers and pull off a stunt that makes everyone's jaws drop. There are plenty of real-life stories of animals doing that. Is it going to be realistic in every case? No, but with GM supervision I can see it leading to a lot of fun!

Quote:
-> Let's just look at the math a little: Dyslexia [-10], Non-Iconographic [-10], Innumerate [-5], Cannot Speak [-15], "Cannot Sign" [-5?], "Cannot learn any technological skill" [-55?]. That seems like a bit of an overload on that last one there.
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].

Also, Apes can sign. Sort of. They're Ham-Fisted, so their pronunciation isn't very good, and no (verifiable) research has shown that they really understand what they're signing any more than parrots understand what they're saying. Again, Cannot Speak is a purely physical disadvantage. If Nonsapient were to include a signed analogue of Cannot Speak, that would be double-dipping… with No Fine Manipulators!
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