One way I look at D&D stats is to see them as "_______ as applied to adventuring". So, an 18 INT wouldn't necessarily mean you are super-smart in general -a competent village alchemist likely knows more about alchemy in general than an adventurer- but the adventurer knows more about alchemy as needed on an adventure; such as working in a bad environment, having to guess on ingredients because some might not be available, using rare ingredients, or making potions that 'civilians' have no use for. If one asked an adventurer how to make a potion to heal a sick cow they would would probably give you a blank look and then hand you a healing potion with the suggestion you try mooing as you give it to the cow.
That's the way the Avernum series of CRPGs rationalizes it. PC mages aren't necessarily master wizards even as they are throwing around high level magics. Rather, they know one discipline of magic very, very, well but are complete novices when it comes to non-battlemagic and are hopeless at dealing with complex magical enchantments worked by true master wizards.
I am still intrigued by the idea that humans get 7+d6 for their stats, or an even distribution of 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13. Picking on INT, I get:
8 - IQ less than 85
9 - IQ 85 to 94
10 - IQ 95 to 100
11 - IQ 101 to 105
12 - IQ 106 to 115
13 - IQ more than 115
So agreed that IQ/10 does not work that well.
Also, this concept would eliminate a lot of the extremes, like 3, 4, 5, or 6.
Also, this forum will attract a lot of high-Q people. Finishing university gives a higher average. Finishing high school gives an average of about 105.
I am still intrigued by the idea that humans get 7+d6 for their stats.
Well, frankly, I can't, and I don't think you should, either. Even if you didn't graduate HS(?), then so what? Based on what you've posted here, I am 99.999% sure that would have been due to your (*****) family/ personal circumstances at the time, rather than any lack of intelligence on your part. Because I don't believe that anyone with an IQ<100, would be able to write as coherently as you do, or do the job that you do.
Well, frankly, I can't, and I don't think you should, either. Even if you didn't graduate HS(?), then so what? Based on what you've posted here, I am 99.999% sure that would have been due to your (*****) family/ personal circumstances at the time, rather than any lack of intelligence on your part. Because I don't believe that anyone with an IQ<100, would be able to write as coherently as you do, or do the job that you do.
Hah, well, in all seriousness: I dropped out of high school at age 15. Got my GED at 18, and then ended up a college dropout before 19.
Both were, technically, not my fault and completely out of my control, but that doesn't stop me from wielding it for self-hatred purposes.
Spoiler:
I had to drop out of high school due to my health; at the time, I was living in a rural town and had parents who were solidly in the "You're not sick, but if you are, it's because you're turning your back on God." camp. Going to a full day of class was doable, but not consistently. And this became increasingly more and more difficult as the weeks went by, all the while being told by everyone around me that I was a-okay. I started skipping classes in January, instead choosing to lounge around in the cafeteria or at a park in the village (by this point, I'd only gotten sensitive to heat; cold actually made me feel better). There were four classes a day and my second semester mid-report card had over 100 missed classes. I'd go to one or two classes a day, but there were a couple stretches where I'd get off the bus at school and just not go in at all that day.
My dad passed away at the end of May just before my 16th birthday, and I got a freebie from the school to not come to school for the last month. I technically passed grade 10, but I had stopped going to school entirely before the year was out. When grade 11 started in September, I made it through two days before hitting my limit, and I didn't go back until November. This was a rural school, so the only long-term exception for in-person attendance was pregnancy. "Kids with health issues" was not a recognized idea by the staff since no one was disabled beyond intellectually or with a carer. So it was either go to school or fail. I failed. I think I went to school three or four days, total, for the first semester, and none of the teachers were allowed to give me take-home work. I was still a student in the loosest sense of the term.
I tried my hand at online schooling but back then it was provided through a web portal that resembled Windows 95 and all exams were held in the city, a place I couldn't get to. They also only let you do one exam per day, so I'd have had to stay multiple days just to do my final exams. So I dropped out of online schooling too. Twiddled my thumbs until I was 18. Then I met a girl and I decided I should probably do something about my life, so I got my GED and applied for college, got in, and then a couple months later I'd moved into a motel near the college to find a place to live and work before the semester started.
I did find a job after three months (turns out finding work in the dead of winter in a tourist town isn't viable), but I couldn't find a place to stay. All the student housing was still closed and I couldn't live on campus itself. I found one place, but the landlords were cultists; since I was raised in a cult, this was an automatic no-go. They would do daily inspections of the suite, check all media to ensure you weren't consuming any "banned material," and they wouldn't give you keys so you'd be forced to adhere to their curfew. So I dropped out of college too. I dropped out before my loans kicked in, though, so that's nice, I guess.
I'm not sure that I can do a serious assessment of my intelligence. My family strongly discouraged learning. I was in a gifted program as a child (parents couldn't remove me from this) and had the opportunity of skipping from 4th grade to 6th grade (parents said no). My grades were bad through it all, though, and I was about as aimless as you could be. I was preoccupied with being "normal," and rebelling against my parents by having ambition never came to mind (I regret this immensely). Academic achievement was never on my resume. I did get a perfect score on writing and reading comprehension for my GED, and my overall ranking was 99th percentile of all graduates in Canada. But it's a GED; that percentile means nothing. It's about as useful as a toddler being ahead of their peers in stacking blocks.
Otherwise, I don't really know very much. I gave myself a higher wisdom score because that's how I cover it up. I help people, and I generally avoid situations where it's possible that my lack of intelligence can be evident. There's no subject that I know a lot about. Even with my job, I largely can't remember technical terminology, and I rely, to an inappropriate degree, on intuitive knowledge and the inertia of a life of writing and revision. On a project, left to my own devices, I'm indistinguishable from an intermediate editor, but the house of cards comes tumbling down the moment I'm in a technical conversation with colleagues.
I have a shallow understanding of most things. Enough to pass the common sense check. But that's about it. I'm just good at masking the inadequacies.
Not necessarily. The ASVAB is a broader test that goes outside the range of IQ/educational achievement. Just like when I took the SATs I was somewhere in the transition stage between drunk and hung over when I took the ASVAB, and had broken my glasses in a bar fight the night before so I really couldn't see what I was doing. It had this test where each question consisted of two rows of zeros in this tiny font, with some number of capital Cs mixed in that you had to count. I did that entire section by just marking the multiple choice answer sheet in a pattern that appealed to me. Fortunately I already knew I wasn't trying to be a pilot, or some kind of sharpshooter.
If you are thinking your general depth is lacking favoring general breadth, then yes, you've identified something the societies we live in do not reward highly with regularity, but can be identified as wisdom without shame. Imagine getting old. It's creeping in. Gotta make lists, gotta look up references online more often. Gotta target the figuring stuff out skills and keep those brushed off. Which is cool, because figuring stuff out is often fun.
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