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<blockquote data-quote="TwoSix" data-source="post: 9286720" data-attributes="member: 205">Because those differences can be true in aggregate but not true in an individual.&nbsp; Like, for example, it's scientifically true to say that people of Asian descent have a much higher chance of having the B blood type than people of European descent, just like it's true to say that Europeans have a much higher chance of having the A blood type.&nbsp; But, the majority of people of those descents still don't have those blood types.&nbsp; Now, let's say in a fantasy world we instead have some gene that gives high agility (a baseline 16 Dex) or high intellect (a baseline 16 Int).&nbsp; It could be totally true that a third of Elves have that high agility gene, and thus have a much higher baseline of Dex (a 16 vs a 10) than other races or cultures.&nbsp; You could even average that out to say that Elves, in aggregate, have a +2 Dex compared to other races.&nbsp; But that &quot;+2 Dex&quot; doesn't have any bearing to any one individual elf.&nbsp; Most genetic traits are going to have that kind of distribution.&nbsp; It would be extremely rare to have a genetic trait that's extremely common in one population but not expressed at all in other populations (which is what the +2 stat to everyone in the population would be modeling.)&nbsp; But the capacities that are measured by the 6 stats are already hugely variable (thus the 3-18 range), and thus capture the kind of model we would expect to see from traits that can be influenced by a broad swath of genetic factors.The damning part of the &quot;+x to stat for a race&quot; model is that even looking at the rule as a simulationist, it's a very bad simulation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TwoSix, post: 9286720, member: 205"] Because those differences can be true in aggregate but not true in an individual. Like, for example, it's scientifically true to say that people of Asian descent have a much higher chance of having the B blood type than people of European descent, just like it's true to say that Europeans have a much higher chance of having the A blood type. But, the majority of people of those descents still don't have those blood types. Now, let's say in a fantasy world we instead have some gene that gives high agility (a baseline 16 Dex) or high intellect (a baseline 16 Int). It could be totally true that a third of Elves have that high agility gene, and thus have a much higher baseline of Dex (a 16 vs a 10) than other races or cultures. You could even average that out to say that Elves, in aggregate, have a +2 Dex compared to other races. But that "+2 Dex" doesn't have any bearing to [i]any one individual elf[/i]. Most genetic traits are going to have that kind of distribution. It would be extremely rare to have a genetic trait that's extremely common in one population but not expressed at all in other populations (which is what the +2 stat to everyone in the population would be modeling.) But the capacities that are measured by the 6 stats are already hugely variable (thus the 3-18 range), and thus capture the kind of model we would expect to see from traits that can be influenced by a broad swath of genetic factors. The damning part of the "+x to stat for a race" model is that even looking at the rule as a simulationist, it's a very bad simulation. [/QUOTE]

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