attributeconversion to real life, without flaming, plz Options

[Slamm-O]

i was wondering what everybody's opinions were on rough conversions from sr attributes to real life quantifiers (ie IQ). Now i know some cant be quantified so easily, so maybe give an example for them (charisma). I also know that they are pretty loose ratings (charisma being looks and attitude etc.)

i want to know because me and my friends wanted to have a campaign where we tried to play ourselves, but we want some sort of standards for attributes and skills. Assume that the total maximum for humans is 9 (for very exceptional human beings, no just olympiads but legends) and no adept abilities/edges/magic etc.

i understand that flames can develop (you think you are a Int 7 because you scored that on the SAT/IQ?! you are so full of it!) please avoid them though, just put in your input and allow us a group (DSers and out gaming group) to weed out the BullShit.

I was thinking it might be easy to get some ratings in relative terms using the following, since we have all been tested/can be tested these ways:
str-bench press, other excercise with weights
int-iq or sat
charisma-compared to hollywood star (using the public persona) both sexes plz
willpower- maybe a list of easily imagined tests?
bod- size/fitness, giving relatives for both
quickness- 40 time and relative agility and/or dexterity (juggling, acrobatics, whatever)

[Siege]

First you have to decide what is encompassed by each stat:

Body is relatively straight forward in terms of what it's supposed to encompass.
Figure in mass as well as disease resistance -- a skinny chick might never, ever get sick which would earn her a slightly higher Body than her physical stature might otherwise suggest.

Quickess -- hand-eye coordination and/or personal speed.

Strength -- bench-press, bicep curl and so on.

Charisma -- um...tough one. Personal charm averaged with physical attractiveness. You're on your own rating each other.

Intelligence -- memory, reasoning power and perceptive ability.

Willpower -- this one is a gimme. You know who's stubborn and who isn't. And who can better resist temptation.

-Siege

[MachineProphet]

Body: Amount of medium-strength baseball bat blows one can take while remaining standing. "Medium strength," of course, is relative.
Strength: For every 50 pounds of Benchpress, 1 point of STR.
Quickness: Amount of Feet you can score more than 40,000 points on in Dance Dance Revolution. (My quickness is 6!).
Charisma: I don't know an accurate way to measure this, unfortunately.
Int: SAT score /200.
Will: You may have to do this test double-blind, but make somebody go to a performance they seriously wouldn't like or would offend them as a favor to somebody else, and see how long they stay.

[Slamm-O]

i really like your guys ideas as far as willpower, and i was thinking that the best way may be for all of to have a brief discussion on our views (like a caucus) and then all write down everyone elses stats secretly, then have the gm use those ideas along with his own to formulate our stats.

ps. machine phophet i like your tests, thank you for trying to make them test-like as much as possible, i like it even more since i get a strength of 7 and an int. of 7 (though only a body of 2...i would guess anyway, never been beat with a bat :)

[Phaeton]

MachineProphet - I'd say charisma is a combo of your looks, your devastating wit, your natural presentableness, and so on so forth.

And I'd say etiquette is how to avoid pissing people off.

[leemur]

[kevyn668]

The SAT is in no way a "true" measure of intelligence. If you scored really high and believe that it is, you just proved my point.

[Siege]

Flaw: Addict, Billy Ray Cyrus

-Siege

[kevyn668]

[Munchkinslayer]

6 pt Flaw: Mullet-wearing Billy Ray Cyrus fan

[Panzergeist]

Well, obviously intelligence 3 would be IQ 100, since both are defined as dead average. I would say that each point of intelligence is 20 IQ points, since that is one standard deviation, and an IQ of 40, which would be INT 1, is just above the official definition of severe mental retardation. Body is just hard to measure, becase A: it represents resistance to toxins, pathogens, and physical damage, as well as stamina, which in real life are often widly different and B: you would have to attempt to hurt someone to measure their body. I would have to say that the body rating has no real-life existence. Strength is probably more like 40 pounds bench press per point, since as has been stated, a 3 is average for every attribute. Willpower is another one that is hard to measure, although you could probably set something up involving measures pain resistance. Charisma is fairly easy to intuitively estimate, but impossible to quantify. Quickness is easy to measure, since it determines running speed. An average (qk 3) person can run 9 meters in 3 seconds. Since it takes a second to get to speed, this would be better measured by running for 15 seconds, in which an average person would run 45 meters.

[Panzergeist]

So, if you believe the SAT is a true measure of intelligence, that proves that it isn't? Intelligennce 2 Philosophy -3

[Austere Emancipa...]

Just like thinking being a communist proves you are a libertarian proves you aren't. Or something. (Not that I have anything much against communists -- from the average US standpoint, I live in a socialist country.)

You can't use IQ as Intelligence with 100 = 3 and one standard deviation = +/- 1, because then there'd have to be just as many people with 0 or negative Intelligence ratings as there are people with 6 or higher Intelligence ratings. Doesn't work out. That would also make the amount of people with 6+ Intelligence (and 0- Intelligence) ~0.6% (or ~0.13%, depending on where exactly you draw the limits) of the total population, which seems too few.

This (the Intelligence-IQ bit) has been thoroughly discussed in the You As A Shadowrun Character thread.

I won't give you any limits, because I don't believe in any, but I can you the percentages of (human, unaugmented) population that has certain scores in an Attribute in my mind (and thus in my games):
1: 1.8%
2: 13%
3: 30%
4: 30%
5: 17%
6: 6%
7: 1%
8: 0.6%
9: 0.4%
10/11: 0.2%
Or something like that. I consider the average for attributes to be closer to 3.5 than 3, which I know goes against canon. Using those percentages, the actual average (Ex) is ~3.76. Which I am fine with.

[Siege]

The SAT doesn't test reasoning ability nearly as much as memory retention.

I would submit plenty of bright people possessed of a certain cunning would have a high Int and not necessarily high SAT scores.

-Siege

[Shockwave_IIc]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Slamm-O]

i think the bench press thing proves that you need a sliding scale, otherwise i would be almost a 9 in strength, when there are people who can lift hundreds of pounds more than me, i always liked to think i was more of a 5.5 (bench 350#). I think that it is better to try and get other peoples assesment of you now that i think about it, unless someone can come up with a good sliding scale for int. and str. Wuickness encompeses (sp) speed, dexterity, and agility, so i think that at least 3 tests would be needed to figure it out. 40 time, reach (or whatever its called when you lean foward while sitting with your feet outstretched and measure with a pegboard) and maybe something like juggling?

[snowRaven]

If you want really crude and interesting, but fully canon, ways of determining some attributes:

Strength
Find the weight a person can lift off of the ground, in kilograms, every time he tries. Divide that by 25, and round down. That would be the character's strength. Reduce the final strength value by a point or two if the character is trained in/very used to weightlifting or if he or she gets a very high result. Then proceed to test the strength rating by lifting an object over your head (kilograms/12= strength) and throwing the object (weight of object/10+number of meters throw = strength; reduce by 1 or 2 for really high results). Adjust final value according to all tests.

Quickness
Run, without pushing yourself to the limit. Once you are up to speed measure the speed of the character in meters per second. This is the characters quickness. Then proceed to test the quickness rating by swimming. Determine the swimming speed in meters per second as per running above. Take times 5, and you have the resulting quickness. Make a running jump - the resulting distance in meters is the characters quickness.

Body
Run as fast as you can and time how long it takes before you start loosing steam. Divide the number of seconds by 3 - this is your Body. Test this value by pushing the person, naked and bound, from a four meter high location repeatedly down onto a reasonably firm area (lawn with no moss). See how often the person getsenough pain and bruises to signify a Light wound. Compare statistically to Body (TN 2, 2 successes needed - you count the probabilities)

As for the mental statistics, well... you are out of luck, canon-wise. I guess if you find a suitable enough test to determine reaction you can deduce your intelligence using that and your quickness. For instance, if in a combat situation, how often can you perform 2 complex-action-equivalents in 3 seconds? Count probabilities based on one intiative dice and your minimum/maximum reaction. Then test your intelligence in carefully prepared and controlled perception tests according to the SR TN tables.

Note: Any test involving probabilities should be performed at least 100 (and preferrably 1,000) times under the exact same conditions (as far as SR TN modifiers go, that is), and remember to account for the presence of any known edges and flaws, and always allow for an approperiate error margin and the existence of unknown edges and flaws possessed by the test subject.

[Slamm-O]

lol snowraven, that is great, that would be the correct way to get our stats i suppose, even taking skills and edges/flaws into account, very cool, especially wince i have lots of weightlifting experience and no one else really has any, but i think its a little too involved for our purposes, i dont think everyone would be up to all the physical activity involved. So tomorrow we will just go and use the system i described in my 2nd/3rd post. Thank everyone for your help, very nice.

one thing though, am i reading it correctly that a strength 6 man would have to toss a 50 kilogram object 6 meters?

[Fortune]

The way my group did this (in the distant past with D&D) is tohave each character rate themselves as to what their own Attributes are, and also rate the other players as well, preferably in private. The GM then averages out the Attributes for each character, counting the character's player's votes twice.

Joe states that he has a 5 Strength. Tim thinks Joe has a 3, while Martha believes that his real score is 6. Bob is an idiot, and wrote down 4 for everything for everyone.

Averaging these out, you get 5 + 5 + 3 + 6 + 4 = 23 / 5 = 4.6

This seemed to work well at the time, and didn't lead to any hard feelings among the players, which can sometimes happen in this type of situation.

[kenji]

ok, for conversion: just guesstimate. rough numerizations of real life qualities aren't really going to rigidly correspond to anything, especially when they're just rough categorizations of human ability.

so, now for the problems:

Str: ok, this one is nice and straightforward. only problem could be momentary strength vs muscle endurance. (ex: i was a laborer, but it has honed my lifting stamina and NOT my overall strength.) but yeah, weightlifting would gauge this pretty well. and the other part could just be chalked up under Bod.

Dex: ok, are we talking about hand-eye coordination, movement speed, or whole-body agility? apparently, all 3. (ex: i can dance ok, but i can't run that fast. what's that mean for dex?) each thing is a different aptitude, mushed all together for game mechanic efficiency.

Bod: physical resilience, endurance, and immune response. health, ok. no problem on the definition here. these capacities can vary, but i think they're pretty well linked.

Cha: well, here's an easy metric: how high could your innate social skills get you in a power hierarchy? how much or quickly can you assume leadership of a roomful of people? (there's a lot of instinctive factors here, but since we DONT THINK ABOUT them, i suppose it's easy to abstract out. physical appearance, height, confidence, cultural connection, oratory skills, etc...)

Int: well, what exactly are you measuring? cognitive ability is a combination of a bunch of tasks that human brains are good at. and some we do without thinking. and then there's the fact that the most common (mistaken) metric for intelligence is Education. (which is exactly why the Princeton Review (SAT peeps) were forced to change it to Scholastic _Achievement_ Test. because testing learned information doesn't test Aptitude directly, because of lack of parity between school systems. and it took the Judicial Branch to force this admission from "intelligent" people. :P) hell, the very fact that we all assume it's a bell curve suggests that there's actually a combination of factors at play. (which is what generates bell curves, many factors measured as one.) nevermind the difference (by "common knowledge", inverse relation of) between academic ability and practicality. and where does linguistic ability fit here? or specific savant ability? (eg: math, visual art, music?)

Will: erm, umm... errrrr... best way to test this: Stunbolt them and see who stays up. other than that, i don't even know where this is derived from.

---
this seems to hearken back to the fundamental RPG question of : what attributes will we use and why? (anyone know of any games that don't use raw-ability-stats for characters? or is it truly universal?) it's a numerical abstraction in any case, so it gets difficult when thinking about the particulars.

[3Threes]

Make a running mental leap, the result is your intelligence.

[DamienKnight]

SR# p. 41

'Willpower keeps a character going when he wants to give up, or enables him to control his habits and emotions. Willpower determines whether or not a character is going to take charge of his life. A character with low Willpower might defer to other people when big decisions are being made, for exampls. A high-Willpower character is more assured and possesses a never-say-die streak. Such characters go down to the monowire because that's eaxactly the fragging point.'

How about a willpower quiz. Assume your starting score is 9 and subtract 1 for every affirmative answer.

-edit: After some consideration, I think it would be more balanced to start with 6 and subtract .5 for each affirmative answer, rounding down.

1. Have you ever bought something you didnt need due to a good sales pitch?

2. Do you make a habit of it?

3. Are you afraid of minor pain? (i.e. Are you afraid of getting shots? (most are, dont feel bad).

4. When you plan on studying, do you often let things distract you.

5. When you make a resolution, do you sometimes not stick with it?

6. If you answered yes to #5, do you almost never stick with it? subtract another point.

7. Do you ever let irrational fears affect your behavior (do you skip an excellent ride up the St. Louis Arch with your hottie girlfriend because of a fear of heights? Do you put off taking a shower until the man of the house comes home to kill the spider in your bathtub?)

8. Do you more often than not answer yes to #7?

9. Have you ever skipped doing something important because you just didnt want to get up from the couch?

Im sure this is not a perfect (or even great test), but maybe it gives you the general idea behind willpower.

[snowRaven]

[Austere Emancipa...]

snowRaven: At least for Quickness, using the running and swimming values will result in extreme overrating. Even I'd have a 4 or 5 in Quickness, using the average of those tests. The given running speeds in RPGs are never meant to be values for unburdened people running on a track at their leisure. The values are meant to be used in a combat environment mostly.

You'd need some "Leisure Deflator" to get more reasonable values.