I’ve been getting my head around the SIZ attribute.
From the various sources I’ve looked at (forums, height and weight charts of rpgs and actual people, et cetera) I gather that Siz equates to a characters approximate weight in Stone [Thats what we use to measure human weight in England, 1 Stone = 14 lbs].
The books (CoC and the “Basic” RP system it’s based on) both state it’s more a measure of mass than height, with the finer points left up to the player to decide.
So by that logic SIZ 11 can be anywhere from 10 Stone 0 Pounds and 1 Ounce up to 11 Stone 0 Pounds and 0 Ounces. This correlates with the "Medium" Kg column on the chart Stoatbringer posted above.
I quite like that, but to help get my head around the proportions of it I’ve found the NHS BMI chart as a helpful graph to get an idea of a characters build based on the weight and chosen height.
This can give a good idea of how thin or heavy a character may be if you decide they are a certain height. Of course the BMI itself marks no difference between muscle and fat mass, listing only “Overweight, Obese, and Very Obese” for anyone with more than an average build. The chart makes a point of noting that it is not built to accommodate “atheletes” and names its categories assuming all exess weight is stored fat. Which led me to take a look into what kind of weight ranges athletes actually have.
Without getting into too much detail, from what I can find, it is possible for a person to still be healthy and have excess muscle mass that can take them up to as far as (in the most extreme case of competitive body-builders at maximum pump - such as a 6’ tall 21 Stone behemoth) the borderline between the Obese and Very Obese categories.
Most Boxers height and weight ratios put them between “Overweight” and the “Overweight” / “Obese” border with the higher weight categories shorter members being of the stockier physiques, this seems to be about the limit for muscle development without chemical assistance.
This scale seems to work pretty well for proportioning most people, though Tyson Fury kind of tops it out as last year he weighed in at 19.5 stone, but he’s 6’9”, so as a champion super heavyweight I think he’s allowed a SIZ 20…
