Size of Item Ranges - Entirely Confused

[Chromatism]

A little help if anyone would be so kind. Now that I understand all the various bits and pieces separately, I'm working through RQ:G a second time to cement everything together.

In regards to Adventurer Sizes, it seems clear that 1 Siz roughly equals 1 stone in terms of weight/healthy mass. This doesn't fully track (especially earlier on in the table) presumably because of the system's insistence of otherwise being metric in all other respects. I'm guessing the KG ranges had to be tweaked to keep numbers near enough whole and vaguely correct when compared to lbs.

Now we come to page 151 and the Size of items table... If someone could help me out here, I'd be extremely grateful. On the table it seems like a mathematical formula comes into play at SIZ 23 that steadily increases the KG ranges with one or two odd spots (notably SIZ 42 to 43 and Siz 45 to 46) that completely throw me. Are these range increases arbitrary, or would some kindly and mathematically inclined soul enlighten me as to how this is being calculated?

Thanks very much!

Edited January 10, 2020 by Chromatism

[soltakss]

This has always been an issue with various versions of RuneQuest.

For roughly human-sized humanoids, if you use a rule of thumb that 1 SIZ = 1 Stone (14 lbs or roughly 6kg) then that is a good approximation.

For larger creatures, doubling the height multiplies the weight by 8, so creatures get very large SIZ values, or larger points of SIZ cover a broader range of weights.

 

[Darius West]

This has been one of the long term issues with all BRP based games (RQG included unfortunately).  The SIZE stat is wonky and has been for a long time.

SIZ has always tried to reconcile physical dimensions with weight to produce a sought of "Mass" stat, but it doesn't work all that well.  

19 hours ago, Chromatism said:

Now we come to page 151 and the Size of items table... If someone could help me out here, I'd be extremely grateful. On the table it seems like a mathematical formula comes into play at SIZ 23 that steadily increases the KG ranges with one or two odd spots (notably SIZ 42 to 43 and Siz 45 to 46) that completely throw me. Are these range increases arbitrary, or would some kindly and mathematically inclined soul enlighten me as to how this is being calculated?

I believe the odd and apparently arbitrary "odd spots" are to do with examples of real life animals, but I can't remember what was said with enormous clarity.  I had a biologist friend who was running the numbers and noted this too.

[Chromatism]

Thank you both! I'm glad it's not just me. I was also reading some of the SIZ entries for one or two larger creatures in the Bestiary and trying to work out what that nebulous number actually meant. In essence it seems like "winging it" and "logical crowbar-ing" are in order.

[g33k]

SIZ is a number.  It has a singular dimension.  But it's trying to describe several different things...  Mass, Extent (greatest linear dimension), Reach (e.g. can a melee weapon hit anything other than the closest hit-locations, can the up-SIZ creature hit earlier in SR, or even from outside the melee range of normal PCs; and of course "wieldiness" of an object!).

It is impossible for the single scalar to cover all these uses.

 

[kr0p0s]

Just been looking at Urvantan and his tower. He has inscribed the sorcery spells Create Image and Disappear into the tower to enable him to make it disappear or appear like an innocuous hill. Both spells reference the SIZ of the target. This has got me thinking about the SIZ attribute of objects such as trees, building and landscape features. How is this handled in the rules, if at all. Will we have to wait for the Gamemasters Book?

[Darius West]

I believe that the SIZ stat is long overdue for a rules rationalization.  I have also spoken to Chaosium members who have run the numbers for Call of C'thulhu (where you are most likely to meet a SIZ 100+ creature) and they too have never felt the numbers were entirely satisfactory.  I believe that if some clever biologist wants to tackle the problem, they could relieve many people of this misery.