Longevity percentages

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Longevity may be a bit more common than we thought:

Genetic Finding May Provide Test for Longevity

Dr. Perls said at a press conference Wednesday that there are about 80,000 centenarians alive at any one time in the United States, or about 1 in 6,000 of the population. Some 15 percent of his control group, and presumably of the population at large, have the potential to live to be 100 according to the test based on the 150 variants. But they fail to attain that age because of accidents or unhealthy living , Dr. Perls suggested.

And while that's 15 percent with the 150 gene variants known, there's additional variants, like the Icelandic ones, which would bump those numbers up to around 20%.

So feel free to realistically assign Longevity to 20% of the populations of your game worlds.

[Mark Skarr]

My maternal grandmother just turned 100 (June 9th). My paternal grandmother will turn 100 in 2012. My mother and sister are on track to live past 100.

On the other hand, my paternal grandfather was born in 1899 and he died in the mid '70s (also, he lost a lung in WWI). My maternal grandfather was born in 1912 and he died in '98 (he had been in an accident). My father was born in 1941 and he died of pancreatic cancer in '05.

I'm doomed!

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

Longevity may be a bit more common than we thought:

Could it just be the benefit of living in TL8?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Could it just be the benefit of living in TL8?

No. The study is finding specific gene combinations in centenarians. TL doesn't change that.

The Gurps TL bonus will push people who would have died in their 50s and 60s from direct aging into their 70s and 80s but not past 100.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No. The study is finding specific gene combinations in centenarians. TL doesn't change that.

The Gurps TL bonus will push people who would have died in their 50s and 60s from direct aging into their 70s and 80s but not past 100.

Got it. Still... If the TL bonus pushes death from aging back 20 years for those who would otherwise live to be 50-60, will it not do the same for those who would otherwise live to be 70-80?

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Got it. Still... If the TL bonus pushes death from aging back 20 years for those who would otherwise live to be 50-60, will it not do the same for those who would otherwise live to be 70-80?

Apparently in the real world the biggest TL change does is increases life expectancy at birth, not at age 60 or 80, so people who are centenarians now would be centenarians in the past, barring death by accident or disease, which TL does reduce.


This also means that they're finding pockets of longevity in some population groups where men could take on younger wives who were still capable of conceiving, after their first wives died, giving their population group multiple generations from the same father/genes.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Got it. Still... If the TL bonus pushes death from aging back 20 years for those who would otherwise live to be 50-60, will it not do the same for those who would otherwise live to be 70-80?

The acceleration of aging rolls at 70 and 90 prevents simple symmetry. Making it to 70 takes you through 80 rolls. Going to 90 adds another 160 and 90 to 110 another 320.

The real problem though is that without Longevity (regardless of initial HT and TL bonuses to it) when you start losing HT you enter a "death spiral".

Longevity possessors don't face that and don't lose double pts on crit fails. If their HT + TL bonus adds up to 17 they only fail on natural 18s.

So at TL3 the 50-year old with HT 12 passes 75% of his aging rolls and has still lost a pt of HT in an average of 4 years or less (missed 4 out of 16 rolls). Then his percentage drops and he's not likely to make it to 70.

At TL 8 he's in much better shape. He has a +5 TL bonus and only blows 2 rolls by 70 (though both of those are crits though and cost him 2 pts each). He has about a 50/50 chance of having his aging roll intact even.

However, the next 10 years are as hard as the 20 years before that and he is very likely to lose 2pts of HT and start spiralling downward. Even though his aging roll might still be as high as 15 he loses (at least) another 2 pts from each stat before 90.

Then at 90 (with a base HT of no better than 8 and if his other stats weren't equally high he could be in very bad shape) the next 5 years are as hard as the 10 before that and he's losing pts even faster too. I think he drifts off around or even before he hits 95.

With the many, many rolls required I don't think even a starting average score of 16 gets you to 115.

If you managed to have a HT of 12, a TL of 8 and Longevity the 560 HT rolls to make it 110 have cost you only (maybe) 3 attribute pts and your aging may have only just now started to accelerate (mildly).

Most of the centenarians we see will have been making it with only a starting HT of 10. It's also only the prospect of dying from other causes like infectious disease that kept them from doing it at TL3.

So even just at TL6 I don't think there were any significant number of people making it to 80 without Longevity.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

At TL 8 he's in much better shape. He has a +5 TL bonus and only blows 2 rolls by 70 (though both of those are crits though and cost him 2 pts each).

Why are both of those Critical Failures?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Why are both of those Critical Failures?

If Aging followed the usual rules it wouldn't be. It would only be a regular failure for a base roll that hgih.

However, there's a special clause on p.444 of campaigns that makes a Crit fail _or_ any roll of 17 or 18 for Aging cost 2 Attribute pts.

Unless you have Longevity. That affects the normal success rules too if you get your roll up to 17.

<shrug> Two special rules cases n one minor rules subset. 4e might be sound in its' basic directions but there are places where it isn't really very polished.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

So feel free to realistically assign Longevity to 20% of the populations of your game worlds.

Except to explain some special background ("Yes, I fought at the Somme, young man!"), it's an advantage that's hardly worth bothering with. Few campaigns span decades where it would matter.