All artwork in SR shows trolls with as large or larger proportioned skulls; almost no picture of a troll includes scalp covering hair. From this we can see that the cranial capacity of a troll is tremendous, yet they suffer the largest intelligence penalties.

After researching cranial capacity to straightforward intelligence measurements, there appears to be an issue; why aren't trolls the most intelligent meta-humans (Yes, I do know about game balance and I have since D&D 1st Ed was SOTA, so don't mention it, okay.)?

A trolls brain would have to be slightly (a few percent) larger to cope with the larger nervous system a troll body brings, but nowhere near the projected cranial capacity depicted in SR artwork. The brain would also have to be bigger to include sense enhancement (ie. Thermo), but that rationale has not been applied to dwarves so it ships water from the start.

Here's some reasons, which one/s do you prefer if forced to pick.

a) Addtional nerve feedback processing
b) Additional sense (IR vision)
c) Much, much stronger jaw muscles (think hyenas)
d) Much better sense of smell (think canine levels)
e) Mcuh better sense of taste (think snake)
f) Much more memory
g) "Spare capacity", in the event of brain damage a troll's brain can "re-wire" quickly.
h) Re-inforced skulls giving a noticeable level of (impact?) armour. Might be the reason trolls don't wear helmets, don't need to.
i) Additional blood filters and shock absorbtion for the brain (think giraffes and other headbutting species)

None of this is being done to seek a massive gamemech advantage, just a collection of justifications for why trolls are trolls and not just a thick human with big muscles who has a 25% tax on life.

Oh, yes, because we all know that those tests comparing african-american skulls to caucasion skulls done a few decades ago conclusively proved skull size = intelligence.

Or are blue whales the smartest creatures on earth?



I do recall measurements taken of Einstein's brain after his death showed he had a smaller brain than average, but with a denser neuron network. Could be mis-remembering, though.


-karma

Size isn't everything, it's how you use it

There is sod-all difference in cranial capacity of any human race. Take the time and work out how much bigger a troll skull is to a human skull; from most artwork it appears to have a width of a human TORSO.

A blue whale is intelligent, but its large brain is nowhere near proportional to its REALLY, REALLY, REALLY MASSIVE BODY.

Did you read this

Trolls have bigger heads, but thicker skulls (dermal plating, remember?). There brains are not necessarily any larger than a baseline human. As for their larger nervous system suggesting a bigger brain, didn't T. Rexx (significantly larger than a troll) have a brain the size of a walnut?

Two words:

GAME BALANCE.

Botch,
Good point! I like it when people think.

I like your idea about 'spare capacity', and the one on shock resistance. I also like the concept of increased brain quantity for increased sense capability, even if the dwarf sort of short changes that one.

Larger bodies need larger brains, 9kgs for a sperm whale and what is its body mass?


The shape of Neanderthal skulls indicate that their sensory development was much, much better than sapiens, whilst their language centres was much smaller. This shift in functioning is significant. Physically they were are superiors, but just how much innovation do you think you can have if you have little means to communication abstract thoughts? During the same time periods and maturity as a species we have shown very little difference in our tools making. Also we nicked their basic technology and improved on it, just like they got religion before we did.

Found that info on Einstein's brain.

It wasn't any bigger than anyone else's, but certain structures within the brain were different.

Remember that also a large percentage of your brain is fat. The glial cells that the neurons are surrounded and interwoven by are largely just fatty cushions. So larger does not necessarily equal more neural matter - you might just be more of a fathead.




-karma

With regard to whales and monster truck rallies, I think the following quote is most appropriate:

"Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars...all dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons."

~J

"The average for the adult male European is about 1375 gm whereas the brain of Turgenev, the Russian novelist, weighed 2021 gm. It was exceeded by that of only two others so far recorded: one was an imbecile. Then there is the record of a laborer whose brain weighed 1925 gm. and a bricklayer, 1900 gm. The brain weight of Gambetta, the famous French statesman, was only 1294 gm, or less than the average European. A woman's brain is slightly smaller than man's, and the largest woman's brain recorded was 1742 gm - she was insane. Another woman's brain of large size weighed 1580 gm, and she also was insane. It is some evidence of the unimportance of brain size that the brain of Anatole France weighed only 1017 gm while the brain of Bismark weighed 1807 gm."

As much as I generally hate the "Because it's magic" argument, I'm going to use it here. Trolls, in most fantasy worlds where they exist, did not evolve into the forms they are. They just popped into that shape because of some manifestation of magic.

Because magic works in mysterious ways, it's perfectly possible that, in order to retain similar features/proportions to humans -- to make it easier to identify with them, to make them look nicer, to make the artists' jobs easier in RL terms or whatever BS reasons the magical powers that created them have in terms of the RPG world -- their brains were just filled with nonfunctional grey matter, or "back-up" brain capacity, or whatever the heck else.

I suppose if I had to make the choice, e.g. if the PCs were involved in some scientific research where the brains of metahumans were thoroughly investigated, I'd use a composite of at least reasons A, B, G and H, and possibly F and I and other odder ones as necessary. Combined with what Cray74 and others are saying about the non-relation between brain size and (any form of) intelligence in humans, that would be enough for me.

Cray74, sorry which previous Homo was it that was 6+ feet tall and a reduced cranial capacity? I thought it was Erectus, but obviously I named the wrong species.

As an aside, wild creatures have larger brains than domesticated ones, this includes us.

Also, Troll craniums have to content with the horns. This would require a more advanced musculature surrounding the ckull, a thicker skull to support the muscle tissue and then the internal padding, similair to any horned mammal around the brain.

Jaw bones! It's amazing how much under-skin volume jaw bones can use. Proportional to their head size, cats and dogs have surprisingly small braincases. Big, flaring jaw bones could account for a lot of troll skull size.

Cray74, there definately was a larger Homo species than us an neanderthal, just can't remember the name, but I did actually study it a few years back.

And I didn't mean to imply there is absolutely no relation. But if IRL a 1kg brain can make a human as intelligent as a 2kg brain, as far as we can far as we can measure "intelligence", I don't see any problem with trolls with brains averaging 3.6kg being less intelligent than humans with 1.2kg.

(I got 3.6kg like this: (280cm/170cm)^3 x 1.2kg x 2/3, which assumes that a troll head has only 66.7% of the brain of a similarly sized human head, because of several possible reasons mentioned in this thread previously.)

Here's a reference from the American Museum of Natural History regarding Stegosaurus and their walnut-sized brains. So much for the 'bigger bodies = bigger brains' theory. Granted, Botch is talking primarily about (meta-)human anatomy, not reptile.

If we're talking about adding new game effects resulting from troll anatomy, I'd say that a reaction penalty wouldn't be entirely out of the question either, due to a Homo Sapien-sized brain trying to coordinate a body 4x larger than it was designed to control.

There is virtually no correlation in nature between head size and brain size... see dinosaurs, whales, etc. for examples of creatures with giant skulls and relatively small brains.

I'd say what trolls have in their skulls is thick skulls, shock absorbtion for their brains, bracing for their horns, extra musculature attaching their neck and jaw, dermal plating, etc. There's a lot of stuff you can have in a head that's not brain.

JaronK

Here's another thought: Intelligence in Shadowrun doesn't measure how well you can learn to do math, invent physics, or write novels. It measures how quickly you can learn to do those things, not your ultimate limits. It also measures how quickly and accurately you can process sense input (perception).

If it's a measure of learning-speed, then you could say it's a measure of the speed with which the brain re-configures itself to new skills. Perception could be a measure of how quickly the brain takes in all the sense information from various quadrants and correlates them.

If that's true, then a larger brain would actually mean LESS intelligence. There would be more tissue to reconfigure, hence slower learning time, and it would take longer to bring data from various regions in for central processing.



That said.... it's also easy for me to imagine that trolls have a chemical difference in their brains that impairs thought. I mean, a big brained person who is just drunk or stoned is more stupid, so clearly chemical alterations make a difference.

--K

The head is a fairly fragile thing when compared to the rest of the body, and trolls have tough heads. A troll may only have 1 point of body from dermal armor on its skull, but it also has 5 points of body from its racial mod. A heavy pistol called shot to the head with 2 successes behind it against the average troll will probably only result in an S wound (assuming no armor and no combat pool for dodging or soaking). A lot of their cranial volume is probably just bone.

Thank you for all the comments.

I was trying to establish what it is about trolls that results in a lower brain performance despite having disproportionately larger skulls without upsetting game balance, but also enhance the concept troll.

This I think is my SR compatible conclusion,

FLUFF

a) The greater mass of the skull and jaw requires stronger/beefier muscles in the neck and on the skull.
b) The horns require volume to grow and be firmly attached to the skull.
c) Troll brains are more resilient to damage, especially shaking and blunt trauma.
d) Much thicker skulls in proportion than other meta-humans with addition thickness at the front surrounding the horns.
e) Trolls have a mental bias to remembering rather than learning, acquiring new knowledge as other meta-humans are more likely to be.
f) Troll brains are larger than other meta-humans but this currently appears to be solely for redundancy and helps them recover from brain damage faster.
g) The bone plating, support tissue and tusks bulk out the outer layers of the head and inhibits facial manerisms and expressions.

PROJECTED GAME EFFECT

a) None, trolls already have +STR mod
b) None, trolls have a headbut/horn attack already
c) & d) Optional, consider trolls with horns to be wearing a helmet at all times else the +BOD already counts
e) Small, trolls already have a -INT mod, troll players should be encouraged to keep extensive notes to reflect their IC memory.
f) Apply an arbitary 25% reduction in healing and recovery times from strokes and brain damage, this is rule, I think, would still fluff in most games.
g) None, -CHA mod and fomori troll variants already cover this.

Justifying it to myself maybe, but would feel warmer inside if some argumentative DSFers agree.

Looks fine to me.

Drain bamage?

~J

My only objection would be the inclusion of the helmet addendum.

I was thinking that even though trolls have a higher BOD it doesn't really fully express that much thicker skull in comparison to other meta-humans. So a small increase to armour that only counts towards head attacks. I don't think it is seriously unbalancing if the rating is small, at low power level it doesn't have much impact, plus how many melee fighters could hit a troll over the head; at higher levels the party is generally armoured and trolls look silly in helmets and have already 25% extra for the rest of the armour.

Fortune do you a suggestion for a low level armour, that you could live with (maybe with one arm held behind your back )

Adding the equivalent of a helmet to a Troll negates Called Shots to the head. I don't think this is necessary, as the added Body already compensates in this case.

<just mutters something profane about non-existant "Called Shots ot the head" rules under his breath>

Massive boost to Body and Dermal Armor (even though it doesn't function as armor by the rules, it still clearly is) already reflects that, as has been mentioned by a couple of people. Hitting a troll in the head has the same impact and resistance as hitting him anywhere else on his body; Body + Dermal Armor.

I'm with Fortune [and Doctor Funkenstein] on this one. Compared to the rest of their bodies, trolls' heads are not significantly more protected against most forms of attacks. Assuming that a troll's skull is very thick, much thicker than any of the dermal armor on the rest of its body, they've still got a whole lot of relatively unimportant flesh between the attacker and the important bits.

For example, it would be almost impossible to fatally wound them with any short blade, you'd just give them flesh wounds. Similarly, many deforming ammunition types for small arms would be rather useless against them, since getting to the major arteries in the thoracic cavity would require penetrating first the dermal plating, the very thick ribs and easily 10+ inches of flesh. You could wound them, but taking them down would require a lot of penetration.

Getting hit in the head doesn't allow them similar protection from lots of unimportant tissue all around, but the much thicker bone compensates. Thus just the BOD bonuses all around.

I have never, not even once said I agreed with the idiotic Called Shot rules ... I merely mentioned them in relation to the helmet.

Okay, fervent response. Yes they have a high BOD, but so does any other high BOD meta-human (which have not necessarily correspondingly increased cranial protection). Both trolls and humans can have BOD 4,5,6, & 7 at Chargen without cyber augmentation yet I know which one should have a better chance at resisting a serious head wound, BOD being equal.

Is Impact 2, Balistic 1, some bonus to BOD or -1TN# for attacks to the head noticable but not balance threatening?

Trolls have a minimum Body of 6 at character creation, even with the Infirm 5 flaw. Frankly, whatever benefit their head may have in way of "armor" goes is lost in the size of the target (which is also reflected in the abstract armor ratings). So whatever minor benefit they might have over other metahumans is lost at the same time. Thus, they still have Body and Dermal Armor to rely on, and that's it.

The average Human has a Body of 3. The average Troll has a Body of 7, with 1 point of Dermal Armor all over. This reflects the Trolls overall resistance to any type of damage, no matter where it is inflicted due to the abstract system used in Shadowrun.

In answer to your last question, in my opinion, there really is no need for any additional benefits, whether unbalancing or not. But since you asked my opinion, yes, in this case, giving the benefits of a helmet on top of their already formidible damage resistance abilities is unbalancing.