Stupid question of the month

[David Vance]

If I may interject a little "real life" in here as well...

I've served the last 16 years in the US Army Infantry.  Around about five or
so years ago, we made a drastic change to the APFT (Army Physical Fitness
Test) standards.  The old test used to be based pretty much on a slope, with
those in the 17-20 year range expected to produce more repetitions of
pushups and situps or a faster run time.  The adjustment made was based upon
the fact that the 30-year-old-ish group actually had the most repetitions
and faster run times, showing that a long period of performance produced
greater results than just raw age.  Now, the grading scale is a bell curve,
with the youngest and the older being about equal.

If anyone is curious I could convert what the Army uses to a base percentage
for age groups and you could use that as a framework for building an Age
adjustements bracket.

- David

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Snider" <abnaric at HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <POWERS-AND-PERILS at GEO.CITG.TUDELFT.NL>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 6:19 PM
Subject: Re: Stupid question of the month


> An interesting question. I once considered doing a Heroes article on the
> subject. Never got around to it obviously. Also never really did a precise
> set of rules on specialized improvements on given skills over time for
> those who are masters thereof.
>     In amy case, my base opinion on aging is as follows. Those that are
> based on physical charecteristics will diminish to a degree as those
> charecteristics diminish. They will not fall as fast as the physical
> abilities do because experience will enhance their use to a degree.
>     Those exclusively derived from mental attributes are not affected by
> age unless you choose to add chances for (or curses of) anility and
> senility in your campaign.
> How's that sound??
>
>