GURPS Lite for 4.0 Now Available
- Thread starter WayneLigon
- Start date
tauton_ikhnos
First Post
I don't believe I am. If I may diverge into real-world giftedness for a moment:mmu1 said:
1. The gifted range is usually defined as starting at the 98th percentile, or IQ 130.
2. A child of 100 IQ needs 7-8 repetitions to learn new material; 115 needs 4-5; and 130 needs about 2. That is, 1/4th the time/repetition.
(most of my own knowledge of this stuff comes from Dr. Luf
http://www.educationaloptions.com/index.htm
...whom you may or may not accept as authoritative, but she does generally go with the mainstream beliefs about high intelligence)
An IQ of 12 means that it takes approximately 1/4th as long to master new material, i.e., a new skill. An IQ of 12 is roughly equivalent to the 130 above, which is roughly equivalent to the 98th percentile. So you're right, it is not the 90th percentile, not exactly. But that's the problem with rounding off to a low granularity.
And no, the GURPS setting supplements don't say anything of the sort. That's why I was saying that most people aren't aware. But if you translate the system into real world terms, and want to define yourself in them, that's what you end up with.
On the plus side, it does work out very nicely that one Standard Deviation in the IQ circles comes out to +1 in the attribute! Whether that was deliberate on Steve Jackson's part or not, I dunno.
tauton_ikhnos said:
*Sigh* To pick a supplement at random: GURPS WWII.
They have the average paratrooper, combat engineer, recon soldier, resistance fighter, and sailor with an IQ of 12.
I don't have most of my books with me, but I've seen similar stats across the board, in different GURPS publications. The sample PCs in the Basic Set - physical characters, not scholars, every one of them - have IQs of 13, 12, 12, and 11.
Clearly, the people who write GURPS material have a different idea of what constitutes exceptional IQ than you do.
The 3rd edition book gives the following ratings for IQ:
12: Bright average
13: Bright
14: Very Bright
15: Genius-minus
...
19: Nobel prize
Whereas the 4th edition simply has (for attributes in general)
11-12: Above average, but within the human norm
13-14: Exceptional
15 or more: Amazing
The 4th edition ratings might be a bit more generous than those in the 3rd (since they're a lot less specific - but this is the Lite set), but there's nothing there to support your argument that 12 is 90th percentile and 15 is Nobel-prize level. (Or, for that matter, that ST and IQ are measured on different scales.)
In fact, you're actually basing your claims about the real-world meaning of game values on the learning times you had to have gotten from the Third Edition, since 4th edition GURPS Lite has nothing on this subject - which means the same text you're using to support your point of view actually directly contradicts you, black on white. :\
If there's anything that GURPS stattistics have corresponded to in the past (in terms of rarity and cost) it's the same 3d6 3-18 curve that skill and attribute checks are based on, which puts 14, not 12, at the 90th percentile.
Last edited:
d4
First Post
no, they have the average heroic PC paratrooper, combat engineer, et. al. with an IQ of 12.mmu1 said:
here's perhaps some better data points for the discussion -- from GURPS Who's Who.
IQ
18: Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton
17: Aristotle
16: Cardinal Richelieu, Archimedes, St. Augustine, John von Neumann
15: Tycho Brahe, Benjamin Franklin, Charles Darwin, Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Maimonides, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
14: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Alexius Comnenus, Paracelsus, Catherine di Medici, William Shakespeare, Peter the Great, Sir Richard Burton, Pythagoras, Napoleon Bonaparte, Sir Winston Churchill, Robert Goddard
13: Justinian I, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Dee, Elizabeth I, Genghis Khan, Dante Alighieri, Richard III Plantagenet, Erwin Rommel
interestingly, the only character in either of the GURPS Who's Who volumes with a 10 IQ is Sid Vicious.
Last edited:
d4 said:
1. No, they're not heroic... The book specifically says most of those templates represent average soldiers, and a person using one of them as a PC is meant to add a great deal of points to them.
2. How is that list in any way better than what's in the basic set? Nobody has the slightest clue (except in the most general terms) how intelligent most of those individuals really were.
tauton_ikhnos
First Post
mmu1 said:
d4 already touched on this one.
Uhm, no. I'm basing the claims about learning times on the points values of those skills. I did include an hours conversion data point for languages, but the impact is regardless of the exact proportion.
The 3d6 bell curve corresponds only to chances of success, for which there is no good real world data. A gifted person will be more successful, assuming the same amount of training, but how much more successful is debatable. A 12 is successful half again as often as a 10, but whether that correlates to anything in the real world is unknown, and so meaningless in the practical sense of converting yourself.
There IS a bell curve of human intelligence, of course, it's just a lot steeper than 3d6 - most of the population clusters around the 90-110 axis, with a small portion at 85 or less and 115 or more, and an even smaller portion (2% on each side) at 70 or less and 130 or more, and so on.
Like I said before, it is very nice how each point of IQ corresponds directly to a single standard deviation in IQ in real life in terms of learning time. Whether it was deliberate or not, it makes a wonderful tool for converting.
Hmm! Most of these posts are not really focusing on the 4e changes. Does anyone but me find it really funny how people focus on trying to fit a game system to reality? 
Of course, I guess GURPS kinda leaves itself open to that, claiming "reality tests" and so on. Ah well. Fun is fun.
These notes/questions are from WizarDru...not quoted because I wanted to intersperse commentary/replies.
---
Character disads are recommended at 50% of starting points? Holy Moley! That's a serious step-up. I have no idea how well that would work in practice. Imagine a 500 point Supers character with 250 points of disads?
-- Yeah, that's an interesting design choice, and I'm wondering how it'll work out too. On the other hand, just because you CAN pick that many doesn't mean you HAVE to. And since disads have been changed so they're harder to "build around," a character with 250 points of disads will be feeling it.
Variable cost for the attributes! Big change, there. ST and HT are cheaper than DX or IQ by 10 points a level (ie. 10 vs. 20). Hit points are now based on ST, not HT, and Fatigue is based on HT, not ST. Interesting. Basic speed is HT+DX/4, not ST....am I misrembering here, or does it look like HT and ST have been swapped in a lot of places, function-wise?
-- Actually, Basic Speed was always HT and DX. And the swapping of hit points and fatigue was introduced first in the 3rd Ed Compendium 1. It was a very popular option, so it's no surprise to see it made core in 4ed.
No Eidetic Memory, I notice.
Point values are much more open-ended...there's a clear acknowledgment that 100 point campaigns may not be the norm, and it doesn't appear to focus as tightly on caps to some advantages. All the resistable disads now fail on a flat roll...clearly an attempt to avoid abuse. Mixed feelings on that, I suppose.
-- Thank God on the EM. I actually like the flat roll for disads though. It reduces the temptation to overbuild IQ...and it makes mad scientists possible without the Weak Will disad.
Skills now default to generics, it looks like, and no defaulting to other, similar skills. Not bad I suppose, but the defaults were something I rather liked...knowing that someone with a doctorate in calculus could do simple math fairly well. Easier to follow, though....and now, there's only three categories of skill difficulty, not four (no Very Hard).
-- According to the FAQ, defaulting to other skills is still possible, just an advanced, optional rule that didn't make it into Lite.
Some new damage types, instead of the classic three: burning, impaling and small, normal and large piercing? Ah: Impaling is for melee weapons like a sword or rapier, while piercing is now for ballistic weapons, like a gun. Interesting.
-- Yeah, and I admit, I like this. Guns used to fall into this weird no-man's damage land that was LIKE crushing but could target vitals as if it was impaling...and some calibers did more damage after DR, but AP rounds halved damage and...BLAH! Very crufty. Standardizing ballistics as a separate damage type may look more complex on the surface, but if you look a bit deeper at 3rd Ed you'll see that it really ties up a lot of loose ends very neatly. Similar with "burning" damage.
Combat: Move speeds are modified by THIRDS? Ugh. Combat is still second-by-second, something I grew to really dislike. I never had a combat that lasted longer than 20 seconds, with one exception, in 15 years. That bugged me. Modifiers are spelled out much more logically, now. Some features are now version of the same manuever, instead of separate ones. Very clean layout, which is an improvment.
-- Not sure what the thirds thing is all about...yar. Kinda unwieldy, mathematically...but maybe they have that covered somewhere else? Not sure. I kinda agree about the 1 second/round time scale of GURPS. One thing I did notice though, going through the weapons rules, is that ranged weapons all have longer time periods associated with them. Using a bow requires 2 seconds between shots, for example. Crossbows a minimum of 4 seconds. Guns can be fired quickly, but it takes 3 seconds to reload. One thing I'm curious about...and this probably wouldn't be in the Lite package...is the possibility of rules that insert "pauses" in combats. Encouragement perhaps to spend a round or two doing something other than frantically waving a sword. Sizing up foes, waiting for openings...all of which might space out time more, and add to the "realism" quotient. Hard to say from this though. Time will tell.
Damage: for lite, it looks like there are no hit locations, just general damage. I assume the regular version will still have the damage locations system as per the third edition.
- Probably. One thing I -like- is that the FAQ strongly implies that the "hit location" special manuever is gone. This pleases me immensely. Especially since physical skills are now, by and large, much cheaper to buy and raise.
My overall impression, as one can probably guess, is really really favorable. I've been a long time GURPS player and have enjoyed even the 3rd Edition a great deal. The streamlining and standardization of the rules, together with a new emphasis on adventure gaming that the 4rth Edition promises (and that Lite provides a glimpse of) will very likely draw me back to using it more often. I never actually stopped playing GURPS...but d20 had taken precedence for quite some time. This may turn things around a bit.
Of course, I guess GURPS kinda leaves itself open to that, claiming "reality tests" and so on. Ah well. Fun is fun.
These notes/questions are from WizarDru...not quoted because I wanted to intersperse commentary/replies.
---
Character disads are recommended at 50% of starting points? Holy Moley! That's a serious step-up. I have no idea how well that would work in practice. Imagine a 500 point Supers character with 250 points of disads?
-- Yeah, that's an interesting design choice, and I'm wondering how it'll work out too. On the other hand, just because you CAN pick that many doesn't mean you HAVE to. And since disads have been changed so they're harder to "build around," a character with 250 points of disads will be feeling it.
Variable cost for the attributes! Big change, there. ST and HT are cheaper than DX or IQ by 10 points a level (ie. 10 vs. 20). Hit points are now based on ST, not HT, and Fatigue is based on HT, not ST. Interesting. Basic speed is HT+DX/4, not ST....am I misrembering here, or does it look like HT and ST have been swapped in a lot of places, function-wise?
-- Actually, Basic Speed was always HT and DX. And the swapping of hit points and fatigue was introduced first in the 3rd Ed Compendium 1. It was a very popular option, so it's no surprise to see it made core in 4ed.
No Eidetic Memory, I notice.
Point values are much more open-ended...there's a clear acknowledgment that 100 point campaigns may not be the norm, and it doesn't appear to focus as tightly on caps to some advantages. All the resistable disads now fail on a flat roll...clearly an attempt to avoid abuse. Mixed feelings on that, I suppose.-- Thank God on the EM.
I actually like the flat roll for disads though. It reduces the temptation to overbuild IQ...and it makes mad scientists possible without the Weak Will disad.Skills now default to generics, it looks like, and no defaulting to other, similar skills. Not bad I suppose, but the defaults were something I rather liked...knowing that someone with a doctorate in calculus could do simple math fairly well. Easier to follow, though....and now, there's only three categories of skill difficulty, not four (no Very Hard).
-- According to the FAQ, defaulting to other skills is still possible, just an advanced, optional rule that didn't make it into Lite.
Some new damage types, instead of the classic three: burning, impaling and small, normal and large piercing? Ah: Impaling is for melee weapons like a sword or rapier, while piercing is now for ballistic weapons, like a gun. Interesting.
-- Yeah, and I admit, I like this. Guns used to fall into this weird no-man's damage land that was LIKE crushing but could target vitals as if it was impaling...and some calibers did more damage after DR, but AP rounds halved damage and...BLAH! Very crufty. Standardizing ballistics as a separate damage type may look more complex on the surface, but if you look a bit deeper at 3rd Ed you'll see that it really ties up a lot of loose ends very neatly. Similar with "burning" damage.
Combat: Move speeds are modified by THIRDS? Ugh. Combat is still second-by-second, something I grew to really dislike. I never had a combat that lasted longer than 20 seconds, with one exception, in 15 years. That bugged me. Modifiers are spelled out much more logically, now. Some features are now version of the same manuever, instead of separate ones. Very clean layout, which is an improvment.
-- Not sure what the thirds thing is all about...yar. Kinda unwieldy, mathematically...but maybe they have that covered somewhere else? Not sure. I kinda agree about the 1 second/round time scale of GURPS. One thing I did notice though, going through the weapons rules, is that ranged weapons all have longer time periods associated with them. Using a bow requires 2 seconds between shots, for example. Crossbows a minimum of 4 seconds. Guns can be fired quickly, but it takes 3 seconds to reload. One thing I'm curious about...and this probably wouldn't be in the Lite package...is the possibility of rules that insert "pauses" in combats. Encouragement perhaps to spend a round or two doing something other than frantically waving a sword. Sizing up foes, waiting for openings...all of which might space out time more, and add to the "realism" quotient. Hard to say from this though. Time will tell.
Damage: for lite, it looks like there are no hit locations, just general damage. I assume the regular version will still have the damage locations system as per the third edition.
- Probably. One thing I -like- is that the FAQ strongly implies that the "hit location" special manuever is gone. This pleases me immensely. Especially since physical skills are now, by and large, much cheaper to buy and raise.
My overall impression, as one can probably guess, is really really favorable. I've been a long time GURPS player and have enjoyed even the 3rd Edition a great deal. The streamlining and standardization of the rules, together with a new emphasis on adventure gaming that the 4rth Edition promises (and that Lite provides a glimpse of) will very likely draw me back to using it more often. I never actually stopped playing GURPS...but d20 had taken precedence for quite some time. This may turn things around a bit.
Similar Threads
