If you want to talk big picture, o ye dismissers, I'll invite you one more time to address the point I've been making from the beginning. Yes, I get the in-world justifications. Yes, I agree; there's no racist intent inside the world design. No, I don't think you guys are racist for defending the game. But the game is an art object. How close to real-world ills can an art object be before it can no longer pretend it has no political resonance? No amount of in-game argument can answer that question.
You know..I had a whole post breaking things down...then I took a look at the actual skills involved in the attributes, and realized something:
The real reason for the lower caps isn't that the aptitudes...it is because otherwise, they would have to give individual penalties to most
of the skills. Why is that, you say? Let's look at the skills:
Under logic, we have:
Affected by social prejudices:
Academic Knowledges, Professional Knowledges.
Affected by Size:
All the Mechanic Skills, First Aid, Medicine, Hardware, Demolitions, Cybertechnology(due to the maintenance aspect), Forgery,
Armorer.
Unaffected by either:
Software, Computers, Cybercombat, Electronic Warfare, Arcana
Under Intuition, we have:
Affected by Social prejudices:
Interests Knowledge.
Affected by Size:
Disguise, Perception, Tracking, Artisan.
Unaffected by either:
Language, Street Knowledge, Navigation
In logic, Orks and trolls have a harder time with the SKILLS linked to Logic because of their being bigger then
humans. For Trolls, it is the same thing for Intuition. So, ultimately, it is NOT that they are "less intelligent." It
is that they just can't be as good at the skills covered by those attributes because they are bigger. The lowered
caps of the attributes are not because they are "less", it is because the attributes represent an across the board
penalty to the skills that would be penalized by the size of the Orks and Trolls. That the average Ork and Troll is
just as good at those as the average human or elf is a benefit of the 4th and 5th edition take on making attributes
a starting level and cap method, as opposed to the 1st through 3rd editions Bonus and Penalty method.