Quote from: jibbajibba;837047Going back to D&D therefore, if you want to play a fantasy genre like Lord of the Rings you need certan sorts of stats, even the hobbits have great willpower and perserverence (Frodo probably has "willpower" close to maximum and great consitution). If you want to play a game like the musketeers you need a different games of stats.

The standard 3d6 straight assign as rolled model really only creates characters that fit D&D's own internal genre or possibly a game set in Joe Ambercrombie's Union.

The hobbits are supposed to be perfectly average hobbits - it's one of the central motifs of LOTR & The Hobbit. Joe Average goes on an adventure. The other characters I'd model being above average by them being higher than 1st level.

Quote from: K Peterson;837012Yes, for INT and SIZ.

Makes sense if your protagonists are HPL type male WASPs...

Quote from: jibbajibba;837037Some of that might get my "anthropologist" heckles up. the idea that non-literate tribal groups are less intelligent is somewhat akin to Nazi Eugenics....

Reminds me of how Hitler hated Himmler's obession with investigating the Germans' pre-literate tribal past, since it just demonstrated how unimpressive their achievements were compared to Greece & Rome.

As for INT, to the extent it measures Magic-User style analytical intelligence it is going to be basically the same as IQ and thus measure higher in urbanised literate populations than in hunter-gatherer societies (this is why we have or had the Flynn Effect, with some sorts of IQ measures increasing dramatically during the 20th century). D&D tends to put the non-IQ sorts of cognitive abilities into WIS, which I think works ok.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;837055The hobbits are supposed to be perfectly average hobbits - it's one of the central motifs of LOTR & The Hobbit. Joe Average goes on an adventure. The other characters I'd model being above average by them being higher than 1st level.

But hobbits should be getting a beefy + to their resistance to magical temptation "stat" maybe they roll 2d6+6 or 10 + 2d4 or something.

And since increasing stats as you level has only been around since 3e and the LotR probably clock in at about 5th level for the most part so meh... levelling wouldn't explain their hig stats.

I am not saying that all PCs need to be superhuman, unless you are playing in a superhero genre.....

Quote from: S'mon;837057Reminds me of how Hitler hated Himmler's obession with investigating the Germans' pre-literate tribal past, since it just demonstrated how unimpressive their achievements were compared to Greece & Rome.

As for INT, to the extent it measures Magic-User style analytical intelligence it is going to be basically the same as IQ and thus measure higher in urbanised literate populations than in hunter-gatherer societies (this is why we have or had the Flynn Effect, with some sorts of IQ measures increasing dramatically during the 20th century). D&D tends to put the non-IQ sorts of cognitive abilities into WIS, which I think works ok.

But that is just proving the limited use of IQ tests.
If D&D intelligence is "a measure of how well you do on IQ tests" then it might be relevant it it actually measures memory and cognitative/analytical reasoning then the Australian aboriginal that can recall the precise location of a dozen waterholes he has been to once and the Azande tribesman who has rationalised the existance of Sorcery based on the scientific method would disagree with you, as would the average inhabitant of Peterlee New Town, but for opposite reasons.....

Quote from: jibbajibba;837047The standard 3d6 straight assign as rolled model really only creates characters that fit D&D's own internal genre or possibly a game set in Joe Ambercrombie's Union.

Quote from: jibbajibba;837060But hobbits should be getting a beefy + to their resistance to magical temptation "stat" maybe they roll 2d6+6 or 10 + 2d4 or something.

You can do that just as a bonus to their saving throw as per B/X. Or give them a CON bonus, or a plus to their CON stat.

Quote from: jibbajibba;837060And since increasing stats as you level has only been around since 3e and the LotR probably clock in at about 5th level for the most part so meh... levelling wouldn't explain their hig stats.

Aragorn, for example, spent years proving himself in various adventures before LOTR, so he's definitely high level. I don't agree with the "fifth level" bit – I think that's a reference to the old "Gandalf was a fifth level wizard" idea in which (because magic in LOTR ain't nothing like D&D magic) your fifth level MU is as powerful as Gandalf which was meant to make you feel good about how powerful your MU was, not to downplay Gandalf.

Aragorn has to be at least 10th level to have proved himself worthy (i.e. be name level). So D&D straight up roll 3d6 models this sort of thing fine, it just comes down to whether you think a high level characters should:
1)   Have better stats because the ones with better stats survived (as per the analysis on http://deltasdnd.blogspot.co.uk/)
2)   Get increased stats as they level up (as per D&D3E)
3)   It is sufficient for them to get increased bonuses (but not stats) as they level up (e.g. saving throws, to hit bonuses, skills etc.)

Quote from: jibbajibba;837061But that is just proving the limited use of IQ tests.
If D&D intelligence is "a measure of how well you do on IQ tests" then it might be relevant it it actually measures memory and cognitative/analytical reasoning then the Australian aboriginal that can recall the precise location of a dozen waterholes he has been to once and the Azande tribesman who has rationalised the existance of Sorcery based on the scientific method would disagree with you, as would the average inhabitant of Peterlee New Town, but for opposite reasons.....

Rationalizing the existence of sorcery using scientific method = not using scientific method, therefore your example is utter nonsense. That's your example of intelligence? I suggest you refer your friend to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

(Sorry, posted without reading the whole thread. Nevermind.)

Quote from: jibbajibba;837061But that is just proving the limited use of IQ tests.
If D&D intelligence is "a measure of how well you do on IQ tests" then it might be relevant it it actually measures memory and cognitative/analytical reasoning then the Australian aboriginal that can recall the precise location of a dozen waterholes he has been to once and the Azande tribesman who has rationalised the existance of Sorcery based on the scientific method would disagree with you, as would the average inhabitant of Peterlee New Town, but for opposite reasons.....

I'm not sure what you're saying in the second bit.
IQ tests turned out to have high predictive value for job performance in an industrialised technological society such as our own. IQ seems to correlate positively with most other mental abilities (which would include ability to remember waterhole location), hence the hypothesised 'g' factor or general-intelligence, which is not itself directly measurable.  Australian Aboriginals might score lower on IQ tests than white Australians, while being better at remembering waterhole locations, but IQ and waterhole-location-remembering abilities will correlate positively in both groups.

Gygax describes INT as basically IQ, and it seems to be treated as such in older D&D. It gets a bit iffier in 3e+, by 4e I'm not sure what it's supposed to represent.

Quote from: Matt;837072Rationalizing the existence of sorcery using scientific method = not using scientific method, therefore your example is utter nonsense. That's your example of intelligence? I suggest you refer your friend to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

I suggest you read the seminal Witchcraft and Magic Among the Azande in which EE Evans-Pritchard compares Azande Sorcery to the Scientific Method.

Just saying.....

Quote from: S'mon;837271I'm not sure what you're saying in the second bit.
IQ tests turned out to have high predictive value for job performance in an industrialised technological society such as our own. IQ seems to correlate positively with most other mental abilities (which would include ability to remember waterhole location), hence the hypothesised 'g' factor or general-intelligence, which is not itself directly measurable.  Australian Aboriginals might score lower on IQ tests than white Australians, while being better at remembering waterhole locations, but IQ and waterhole-location-remembering abilities will correlate positively in both groups.

Gygax describes INT as basically IQ, and it seems to be treated as such in older D&D. It gets a bit iffier in 3e+, by 4e I'm not sure what it's supposed to represent.

Yes I agree with most of that the problem is with IQ tests as a method to measure IQ

So IQ tests have large chunks of cultural bias and can be said to measure a causal link towards intelligence. This article - http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/flynn1987.pdf demonstrates that in most of the Western World IQ levels have risen by close to 20 points in the last 50 years.
The implication is that now Mathematicians or Scientists such as Turing, Oppenheimer, Einstein, etc etc should be common place. This is not the case.

If we can site that IQ scores have risen but IQs themselves seem to have stayed relatively static the implication would be that IQ scores have inherent cultural elements that can be learned or at least are more common today than in the past. This applies even tot eh Ravens tests that are supposed to be culturally neutral.

Anyway its an interesting topic that has been debated hotly for years.

It is postulated that there are 9 types of intelligence I suspect it's a far more complex picture than that.

Quote from: jibbajibba;837705Yes I agree with most of that the problem is with IQ tests as a method to measure IQ

So IQ tests have large chunks of cultural bias and can be said to measure a causal link towards intelligence. This article - http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/flynn1987.pdf demonstrates that in most of the Western World IQ levels have risen by close to 20 points in the last 50 years.
The implication is that now Mathematicians or Scientists such as Turing, Oppenheimer, Einstein, etc etc should be common place. This is not the case.

If we can site that IQ scores have risen but IQs themselves seem to have stayed relatively static the implication would be that IQ scores have inherent cultural elements that can be learned or at least are more common today than in the past. This applies even tot eh Ravens tests that are supposed to be culturally neutral.

Anyway its an interesting topic that has been debated hotly for years.

It is postulated that there are 9 types of intelligence I suspect it's a far more complex picture than that.

Some of that is a bit obfuscatory IMO - the Flynn effect (rise in IQ over 20th century) is 'cultural' yes, in that it only affects certain parts/sorts of the IQ test (clearly not the parts that create more Turings or Einsteins), and the rise seems to be a result of cultural change. But this is not the same as 'cultural bias' in the sense of "immigrants don't understand the cultural references in this question" - the latter sort of stuff is recognised as bad testing ("weakly g-loaded") and is avoided.

I think IQ testing is good at measuring IQ, and IQ has predictive ability for performance in many areas. But IQ still only measures certain sorts of cognitive ability. Those sorts of cognitive ability DO correlate with many other sorts of cognitive ability, it is very much not the case that the universe compensates your weakness in ability A by making you good at ability B. So testing well on IQ will always (AFAIK) correlate positively with waterhole-remembering ability, although these are not the same thing, and will show different distributions in different population groups. On average, the better a person is at waterhole-remembering, the better they will do on IQ tests.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;837001Another way of rolling stats I heard of is 2d6+4. A narrower range, giving you stats between 6 and 16.

There's similar suggested methods for statting Drow NPCs in AD&D 1e.  From the Fiend Folio:

QuoteDrow abilities are determined as follows: Strength 8 +1-6 (6 + 1-6 for males); Intelligence 12 + 1-6 (10 + 1-8 for males); Wisdom 8 + 1-10 (8 + 1-4 for males); Dexterity 12 + 2-8; Constitution 4-16; Charisma 10 + 1-8 (8 + 1-8 for males).

Also, to fit smaller groups (1-3 players, with one character each) Gary wrote up an alternate stat generation method in Unearthed Arcana that was very, very generous.  You'd pick your preferred class then get like...9d6 pick the best 3 in the classes' required stats.  So a Paladin would have to have this WIS and that CHA, so you'd get a very high chance of actually having those stats.

Finally, the Cavalier had "percentile stats" across the board, which could go up as much as 10% per level!

AD&D - and I fully acknowledge this, being the resident Angry 1e Fan - was moving in a very different direction even before Gary left TSR.

Also, I've opined that it would be an interesting trick to get a d16 that rather than going 1-16, was numbered 3-18 and gen up a character with it.  Flat, no curve.  

Quote from: thedungeondelver;837752Also, I've opined that it would be an interesting trick to get a d16 that rather than going 1-16, was numbered 3-18 and gen up a character with it.  Flat, no curve.  

http://www.shapeways.com/product/PVUQUW9UA/16-sided-die-octagonal-bipyramid-d16?li=shop-results&optionId=9264084

Here is a blank D16 you can get and number as desired. You could make a statistic rolling die with this.