[Classicmerp] GURPS Normal Distribution Curve vs Linear Approaches

[Michael Cole]

On 24/12/2013 12:40 PM, karl at rpgreview.net wrote:
> The reason I ended up writing SLURPS was my usual motivation, 
> representing non-humans in games.
> Newtonian physics and pure math reduce most real-life problems we want 
> to represent in games to managable linear arithmatic. This is great 
> for being able to accomodate player characters that can lift five 
> times more than an olympic wieghtlifter or run at 70kph. In short it 
> provides a 'hardware' version of the universe.
>
> What is harder to account for and typically ignored is the mind. 
> Skills, perceptions (qualia), memories, are certainly non-linear and 
> create non-linear responses to the Newtonian problems like shooting a 
> distant target. To what degree these are non-linear is another 
> arguement and probably best treated as a 'population bell curve' for 
> simplicity and promptly ignored. However Michael's arguement is 
> probably also just as good a model as any.

I apologise for my dismissal of your document - I obviously didn't read 
it properly.