# Genders - What's the difference?



## Jon_Dahl (May 4, 2011)

Ok, I know that this is a sensitive subject, but... In RPGs, should there be difference between genders?

This concept must be totally alien to younger gamers, but old school enworlders still remember the 70's. We had a game called "AD&D 1st edition". It was a massive game back in the day.
Halfling females had the lowest STR-cap, but if you made a male halfling character, the cap was higher. All genders had difference in weight, height and STR-cap. There was no benefit from playing a female character, and I don't remember anyone ever raising their voice over that issue. Nowadays we only have differences in size, and no one is arguing that. But that's where the differences end.

I also vaguely remember the same from Runequest, but the "physical frailness" of feminine gender was only applied to NPCs. No benefit was given to female NPCs, only some sort of penalty.

In my game I treat PC (creation of) women and men the same, although I feel really frustated about the fact that 150-lbs PC can have the same strength as 300-lbs PC... There are no weight-classes in D&D-wrestling, I guess... In my free-form game I take bodysize and weight strongly into account, and "girly" characters (men or women) are in a world of hurt. Of course this is not directly linked to gender-issue, but since females tend to be lighter, they tend to suffer in mêlée (block that big fist and end up on your a$$). But sneaking and hiding is easier in my freeform-game, if you're lighter.

So what's your opinion?
Men and women are the same, women just are lighter and shorter? In the farms 18-year old girls often participate in hauling the logs with men or is there some reason why women stay home and men do physical work in your fantasy world? Or do they?


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## pawsplay (May 4, 2011)

It depends.

1. Is it relevant to the genre?
2. Is it fun?
3. Can it be represented in the system at the level of detail provided?

It's pretty obvious to me why D&D 3e had no sex-based differences for characters.

1. It wasn't relevant, as the published settings were largely egalitarian to one degree or another.
2. It was designed to be a game with wide appeal, so why restrict options? Even if female Str 18 barbarians are in theory more rare, should there be a price paid for being that rarity, or should you get the same shakes as any other Str 18 barbarian?
3. D&D 3e doesn't have enough detail to accurately reflect real-world differences very well, much less modern genre fantasy where Red Sonja is a She-Devil with a Sword. Relative to each other, in D&D terms, males would probably rate +1 Strength, with an additional +2 for lifting purposes only, +1 to the Intimidate skill, and get +1 to hit and damage with thrown weapons, while females would probably rate +1 Constitution, +1 to the Sense Motive skill, and +1 on Tumble checks. At most. You can't justify even a two point spread on any Ability Score, or a +2 on a skill. GURPS does only slightly better.

In the real world, men and women are very similar in abilities. They have virtually the same intelligence, and except in very specific cognitive tasks that do not resemble most real-world tasks, virtually interchangeable specific cognitive skills. Compared to most animals, males and females are similarly sized, although men do have considerably more muscle in their arms. Women are a little more flexible. Men tend to be less empathic, women more, although that is highly context dependent; men also tend to be higher status and women lower, which also affects empathy. 

There are basically two areas where men excel beyond what even the most accomplished women can do. First, there are astoundingly more male mathematicians, virtually all of whom do their best work in their 20s, rarely even into their 30s, suggesting that hightly theoretical math involves some of those very specific cognitive tasks I was mentioning. Second, men can throw things. Due to a combination of wider shoulders, more powerful arms, a different center of balance, and perhaps some motor neuron differences (which may be learned difference), even a fairly typical man can throw a baseball better than all but the very best women. Even things like weight-lifting do not evince a huge divide; while men are unquestionably stronger to a very significant degree, the actual amount of difference is not huge. Strong women are often stronger than only slightly strong men. On the other side, if you want to survive long periods of physical stress, perhaps involving huge caloric losses, you want a woman. Women also retain a lot of flexibility in their bodies, which men lose rapidly even as they get into their teens. 

Things like math v. science, thinking v. feeling, multi-tasking, etc..... whatever you heard, in actuality, women and men are more alike than different. Men and women who are good at, say, aeronautics perform more similarly to each other than do a male aeronauticist and a male truck driver, at tasks of mathematics, spatial geometry. etc.

Now, in fiction, differences may be exaggerated... or erased (classically, the "tender" woman who cannot survive hardship, despite having birthed untold generations of humans in the wilderness). If you want to simulate THAT, look closely at the actual game differences you want to make.


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## Dice4Hire (May 4, 2011)

Overall, I would be happy to let a player chose a lower strength if they are playing a woman an a lower dex or con if playing a man....Or a higher Int and lower wis, or a higher wis or lower cha, or ....

In other words, I would not saddle a player with some kind of restriction based on sex. But if they want to build one themselves, more power to them as long as it is not offensive to other players or the DM.

Kudos for making a new thread instead of necroing an old one.


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## Dioltach (May 4, 2011)

I can see the appeal in using different rules for male and female characters. But you'd have to balance it properly. Not just limits on female strength, but bonuses to offset those limits.

For example, female characters have a penalty on STR. However, they get Weapon Finesse as a free feat. Or they get bonuses on Spot, Search and Balance.

This would make it more attractive to play a female character for some classes and a male character for others, in the same way that certain races are more suited to particular classes.

The problem is that these bonuses and penalties would be highly subjective. The examples I gave above are based purely on a stereotypical view of differences between men and women.

All in all, I think that this is a matter that is best left to individual gaming groups to decide for themselves, based on their own experiences and views. Although some guidelines might be useful, defining general rules is too likely to upset or offend people, or cause endless discussions along the lines of "But I know some very strong women ..."


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## Aus_Snow (May 4, 2011)

Jon_Dahl said:


> Ok, I know that this is a sensitive subject, but... In RPGs, should there be difference between genders?



Yes.

There _are_ some fundamental differences between the sexes, and therefore, if you're representing the sexes in a RPG, it makes sense to factor those in, I think.

And yes, if the setting is a time and place and circumstance (e.g., Pendragon) where the sexes are even more different (i.e., in various other ways as well) those further differences should be factored in too. As, in that game, they indeed are.


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## Hassassin (May 4, 2011)

It's funny how the fact that men are on average stronger than women gets mentioned so often. I haven't seen research on the subject, but it is commonly held that women are on average more dexterous than men, yet that is seldom mentioned.

I'd be fine with a bonus to strength for men and a bonus to dexterity for women, but I don't see the point. Adventurers are not average characters, after all.


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## Jhaelen (May 4, 2011)

Jon_Dahl said:


> Ok, I know that this is a sensitive subject, but... In RPGs, should there be difference between genders?



Definitely not, at least not regarding ability scores. Otherwise females would have to be better all around than their male counterparts 

For some rpgs systems or settings it might make sense to make some character archetypes gender-specific, e.g. for Pendragon or Ars Magica which are pseudo-historical settings. But even then it be left to the players if they want keep things 'realistic' or not. There are always exceptions, so why shouldn't there be female knights, for example?


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## NiTessine (May 4, 2011)

Jon_Dahl said:


> Ok, I know that this is a sensitive subject, but... In RPGs, should there be difference between genders?




In some RPGs, sure. The question you must ask is if it serves the game. In D&D, I don't see much point. Assigning stat modifiers to sexes would just lead to sex becoming another mechanical feature that you pick at character generation, and suddenly a female melee character would be regarded as "gimped". I can see it actively detracting from the game.

However, as Aus_Snow noted, if it is done like in _Pendragon_, where a female character has a completely different role in society and the campaign from a male one (a politician and possibly spellcaster as opposed to a knight), then it's a distinction worth making on a mechanical level. It adds to the game and enhances the atmosphere the game seeks to create.

To summarize, I feel that if there's a clear division of gender roles in the game world, such mechanical distinctions have their place. If not, no reason to bother. Nearly all published D&D settings fall to the latter category.


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## Mallus (May 4, 2011)

Do you assign a -2 penalty to Jump checks for white PC's?

If not, why?

If the relationship between mass and strength are important, do ogres (and any large animal or monster) bat PC's around like rag dolls in a fight?

If not, why?

Do PC's falling do HP damage, or does it break their bones?

If not, why?

See where I'm going with this? Why specifically apply 'realism' to gender, in a game where it's applied precious few other places?


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## Barastrondo (May 4, 2011)

Could there be? Yes. Should there be? No -- _certainly_ not when you're talking RPGs as a whole, from the gritty to the superheroic.

I can't help but think that from a publisher's perspective, "girly characters should be in a world of hurt" is a very problematic stand to take. For all that it's arguable that such a rule is for the sake of realism, it's applying realism in a very selective place, particularly if the game has any rules at all that model a more cinematic or mythical reality. It implies some strong prejudices on the part of the author, even if they don't exist. In some cases like Pendragon you can get away with this, as previously mentioned (though you should resign yourself to not winning over players who want to, say, play a female knight; seen it happen). For RPGs as a whole: good heavens, no.


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## Zhaleskra (May 4, 2011)

In one of the RPGs I run and play, there are a couple of gender stereotype disadvantages for one species. Both of them are completely optional, and have both good and bad attribute adjustments.


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## ExploderWizard (May 4, 2011)

Someone should have had this talk with you a long time ago.


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## JustKim (May 4, 2011)

Last week I played a Baldur's Gate-era CRPG called Arcanum for the first time, and was surprised to find that playing a female character meant a couple of things. First, it meant I would be penalized in Strength and thus inferior at melee. Second, it meant I had only three races to choose from while male characters get like twelve.

Because I'm not interested in the experience of playing a male character, my choices were greatly limited.

One of the most reassuring sights when I play a CRPG these days is when I select the female gender for my character and read the line "women of (generic fantasy realm name) are in every way the equals of their male counterparts". Many games don't seem to even feel the need to point this out anymore. The days of relegating female characters to leather-clad and supporting roles are gone. That makes me happy.

I'm not really a fan of arbitrary sticking points for realism in RPGs in general, but I think a line absolutely needs to be drawn where you start actively excluding people. It doesn't give me any comfort at all whether limiting my character choices makes sense historically or physiologically. It only gives me a very low opinion of whoever is excluding me.


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## Oryan77 (May 4, 2011)

What if I played a hermaphrodite? Do I get the best of both worlds, or the worst?


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## Aus_Snow (May 4, 2011)

Oryan77 said:


> What if I played a hermaphrodite? Do I get the best of both worlds, or the worst?



What if I played a half-Elf/half-Dwarf? Do I get the best of both worlds, or the worst?

Vitally important questions, both! 

My gosh, could this be a case for... _house rules?!_ Oh my.


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## TwoSix (May 4, 2011)

It's pretty easy to accept "no difference between genders" if you also accept that character creation rules don't have to be world modeling rules.

Sure, on average, men are stronger.  But a D&D hero isn't constrained by the limitations of the mundane individual.

(Or, at least, doesn't have to be constrained, no offense to simulationists/fiction-firsters/whatever all y'all call yourself these days.)


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## Mallus (May 4, 2011)

TwoSix said:


> Sure, on average, men are stronger.  But a D&D hero isn't constrained by the limitations of the mundane individual.



Exactly.

On average, people engulfed in fire suffer burns and scarring. On average... hell, we could go on for _days_ doing this.

So let's ask: what's accomplished by assigning sex-based penalties? Or bonuses, for that matter.


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## the Jester (May 4, 2011)

Jon_Dahl said:


> Ok, I know that this is a sensitive subject, but... In RPGs, should there be difference between genders?




Not mechanically for pcs, unless there are options that make males and females both superior in some ways. The whole "wimminz have lower stats, or even at best" approach of 1e was pretty sexist and a good way to help exclude female gamers from the hobby.

On the other hand, social mores are awful fun to play with, especially if well thought-out.


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## Zhaleskra (May 4, 2011)

Oryan77 said:


> What if I played a hermaphrodite? Do I get the best of both worlds, or the worst?




I own a game where you don't get a choice of gender with one species: pick that species and your character is a hermaphrodite, period. Because it's a template based skill based game, you get the same starting stuff as everyone else of your species. Then you get to mess with it.


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## Thasmodious (May 4, 2011)

I tried to rep Mallus, but, you know...  And I love barastrondo's rep comment "selective realism isn't realism".

Any gender differences are differences noted over very large samples and not reliable indicators of differences between individuals.  Fantasy women may or may not be physically weaker than men on average, but that doesn't mean Kallie the Barbarian has to be weaker than Karl the Barbarian.  We're creating adventurers not statistically averaged individuals.  We all buy our ability scores one point at a time...


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## thastygliax (May 4, 2011)

TwoSix said:


> It's pretty easy to accept "no difference between genders" if you also accept that character creation rules don't have to be world modeling rules.



Well said! Differences between the genders shouldn't be imposed by the rules, but by the setting--and those will almost always be social differences, not physical ones.


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## Oryan77 (May 4, 2011)

Aus_Snow said:


> What if I played a half-Elf/half-Dwarf? Do I get the best of both worlds, or the worst?
> 
> Vitally important questions, both!
> 
> My gosh, could this be a case for... _house rules?!_ Oh my.




I'd say that you get half of what the elf gets and half of what the dwarf gets. But still, do you get the good halves or the bad halves? Good question. And what if your half dwarf/elf was a hermaphrodite? Then what do you get?


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## olshanski (May 4, 2011)

I may have missed a post earlier, but you really need to be precise about your language here.

Gender is a social construct... In modern USA, feminine being the gender that takes care of children, expresses feelings, does housework, watches chick-flicks.  The masculine gender watches sports, fixes machines, does yardwork, acts tough.

Sex is biological.  Male sex has a penis and y chromosome. Female has a vagina and 2 x chromosomes.  This is not a social construct.

You are probably asking whether sex differences (biological) should be reflected in stats, and I'd say "no".  
I've never actually heard of a game that incorporates differences based on gender, and that would be interesting and I probably wouldn't object to it if it were handled well.

{EDIT:  Never mind, I see my use of language is stuck in the 70s and 80s.  This distinction between sex/gender that I described above started in the 50s-70s... before the 50s, gender was only used for grammer.  Nowadays it is apparently OK for "Gender" and "sex" to be used interchangably--unless you are looking at literature specifically for feminists or sociologists or psycologists.  My apologies.
I still stand by my statement that there should be no differences between sexes, but if you wanted to add a difference based on gender, it could be interesting.  Butch women and manly men would get a bonus to some stats and a penalty to others, while girly women and effeminate men would get a bonus and penalty to different stats.}


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## ExploderWizard (May 4, 2011)

Oryan77 said:


> And what if your half dwarf/elf was a hermaphrodite? Then what do you get?




Either twice as many or no offers for a date on a Saturday night?


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## Dracorat (May 4, 2011)

While I think that in many cases, there are real-world differences in gender, *a system should not enforce difference*.

If a player chooses a gender as a matter of stat and plays the character as a manifestation of dice rolls and ability uses, the gender doesn't matter anyway; it's a tertiary stat primarily used when for some reason a magic effect might have to act upon a gender or something similar; situations which rarely occur.

If a player chooses a gender and then attempts to play the character as a flesh-and-blood character, they will naturally have a mental image of what the character can and cannot do and will attempt to mold the character in that image. In this case, the difference between the genders will happen automatically and transparently.

In either case, if the system introduces differences for different genders, it is introducing only the potential for disappointment as a player chooses one but loathes not being able to have the "benefits" of the other. Unnecessary; for the reasons just described.


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## Kaodi (May 4, 2011)

If nothing else, it should be problematic to assume that the differences between the sexes are going to be same for every race. I mean, you can _choose_ for the differences in different races to be the same, but there is no inherent reason _why_ they must be the same. 

As for gender as a social construction... I think it is perhaps slightly mistaken to assume that gender differences cannot produce sex differences, though the degree is likely negligible in the short term; adherence to gender norms could theoretically exert a selection pressure in favour of the "socially constructed" qualities...


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## billd91 (May 4, 2011)

It depends. For most games rules and character types/races, my answer is a most emphatic NO.

But I do like to have the *option* in the game for certain roles or races to have gender-based differences. The Aslan in Traveller would be half as interesting if they didn't have such stark gender differences between males and females. It would be up to the player to choose to live with the gender role differences or pick a different sort of character.

While some wag might say that in any game a player could choose to play a male or female, forcing a female player to play a male character to avoid penalties isn't going to cut it in an RPG looking for a broader audience.


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## Crothian (May 4, 2011)

It seems many people don't like it for realism reasons.  What if we toss out the realism.  I create a race that has three different genders and each gender has its own racial modifiers; what do people think about it then?


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## The Human Target (May 4, 2011)

Thats a level of minutiae I'm uninterested in bothering with in my games.


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## JustKim (May 4, 2011)

Crothian said:


> It seems many people don't like it for realism reasons.  What if we toss out the realism.  I create a race that has three different genders and each gender has its own racial modifiers; what do people think about it then?



I don't think I would care, unless one of the genders is clearly analogous to women. Playing a female character is a point of reference for me, and if there's no point of reference to be found then I'm not inclined to automatically choose one gender, and I don't feel unfairly penalized for playing what comes naturally.


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## Celebrim (May 4, 2011)

Mallus said:


> Do you assign a -2 penalty to Jump checks for white PC's?
> 
> If not, why?




[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo56swo_FFc"]World Record High Jump[/ame]

Because there isn't a lot of evidence for Europeans not being able to jump.  For most of history, they dominated high jumping events.   

There is much better evidence for 'white people' not being as fast over sprint distances than people of African descent, but even then its an open question of whether that is due to inclination rather than nature (there is pretty good evidence that atheletics are more attractive as a career to people who have some reason to be or feel desparate).  Further complicating the problem is that it isn't pure Africans that dominate the sprint distances, but a narrow slice of slave descended/Anglo descended sprinters with about 10-30% European genes that extends over a geographic area from Jamaica across the Caribean to the Mississippi river valley (and the descendents of those people who've immigrated to other regions).   

Further complicating the problem is that even if the difference is measurable, in the case of both jump and run speed, the difference is so small (3 centimeters or less probably related to sprint speed, a few hundredths of seconds over 100 meters) that it wouldn't even equate to a -1 penalty in game terms.   In the case of doing fine scale modifiers like that to races/genders/born under astrological sign, I've done things like 25% chance of a -1 penalty to jump.



> If the relationship between mass and strength are important, do ogres (and any large animal or monster) bat PC's around like rag dolls in a fight?
> 
> If not, why?




The relationship between mass and strength isn't linear with mass, but with cross sectional area, and can be effected in the real world by all sorts of factors like proportional bone mass (see chimpanzee, for example).

That said, the grapple bonuses of large animals are such that its very difficult for an average human to avoid being locked down by any sort of grapple attack, and if you implement throwing as a combat manuever (as I have) or even if you just apply size modifiers to overrun and bullrush, then yeah, a big creature can really toss around a small one.   



> Do PC's falling do HP damage, or does it break their bones?
> 
> If not, why?




Potentially, yes, in my game it does.  All falls are treated as critical hits for the purposes of generating massive trauma saves, and so in some cases falling will break bones and do other traumatic injuries and not 'just' hit point damage.



> See where I'm going with this? Why specifically apply 'realism' to gender, in a game where it's applied precious few other places?




No, I don't see where you are going with this.   All games must pick and choose which realities that they want to track and to what degree that they want to track them.   One particular difference between most of your examples and the case of tracking gender differences is that gender differences usually work themselves out as a character creation complexity issue rather than a game resolution complexity issue.   Character creation complexities are usually a 'one time cost' and so tracking them in great complexity can be a valid decision for a designer that wants to meet certain genera conventions well.   In the case of your genera convention being 'reality', that might include tracking gender.

Or it might not, depending on what you want to capture.

The even bigger problem with your post is that what is realistic (and therefore what is selectively realistic) is a matter of opinion, as your racial (racist) sterotyping indicates.  The more usual problem is that we can't agree over what realism is, not over whether we are being selective about it.

In full disclosure, my game doesn't automatically track gender because in fantasy conventions there is usually no physical difference between women and men (even though this is admittedly pure fantasy).   However, there is an option to take traits 'Fairer Sex' which radically alters your races standard attribute modifiers, or 'Second Class Citizen' which gives you social penalties reflective of the broader mysogyny that is often present in ancient inspired cultures.   (I suppose you could jokingly argue that the 'Meathead' trait is the male equivalent of these.)  

Thus, if the player wants to have a character whose gender is strongly reflected on his or character sheet, he or she may have it, but the game system doesn't forcibly impose that on you.   I should note however that I very frequently impose those traits on my NPC's.


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## Celebrim (May 4, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> There is much better evidence for 'white people' not being as fast over sprint distances than people of African descent, but even then its an open question of whether that is due to inclination rather than nature (there is pretty good evidence that atheletics are more attractive as a career to people who have some reason to be or feel desparate).  Further complicating the problem is that it isn't pure Africans that dominate the sprint distances, but a narrow slice of slave descended/Anglo descended sprinters with about 10-30% European genes that extends over a geographic area from Jamaica across the Caribean to the Mississippi river valley (and the descendents of those people who've immigrated to other regions).




Let me expound on this further, because I want it to be absolutely clear what I'm saying here.

The people of Jamaica dominate international sprinting events in a way that is far out sized with their population.  

I happened to grow up in Jamaica.  So I know what I speak of here, and the people of Jamaica value running far more than Americans do.   So, it is a very open question as to whether the 1% or 3% edge that they have over some other racial/cultural group is the result of the fact that they have a better set of genes for sprinting than some other group, or the fact that they continually make and encourage their youths to sprint and run from a very young age and bestow such social respect on those that are fast.   

What's realistic here?  Nature or nurture or some combination of the two?  And is the edge here something that easily translates to your system?   Unlike my system, in your system speed probably isn't a skill so you probably have even less tools for addressing racial/cultural diversity in speed than I do.  What a system implements as realistic is often as much a matter of the limitations of the system as it is any concerns about what might be realistic.  It might be realistic, but if the modifiers are tiny compared to the complexity that they create, why bother?

However, physical differences and even mental differences between the sexes are well established as being strongly rooted in genes rather than cultural environment and are far larger and more easily measured than the sort of differences behind even false sterotypes like "White men can't jump." or others of the sort I won't repeat here simply because I don't want to promote additional offensive statements.   Those statements are offensive because they are false/unreflective, and not because its offensive to comtemplate that human genetic diversity might have some impact on relative ability.


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## Umbran (May 4, 2011)

Crothian said:


> What if we toss out the realism.  I create a race that has three different genders and each gender has its own racial modifiers; what do people think about it then?




Well, that depends on what you call realism.  It isn't realistic to have separate modifiers for humans, because human sexual dimorphism isn't particularly drastic - human women and men are, overall, pretty darned similar, and their overall ranges of qualities overlap to a great degree.

This is not true for all species on Earth, however.  So it isn't unrealistic to have a race that has stronger dimorphism to have racial modifiers, or even different racial abilities depending on gender.

Nor is it all that unrealistic to have multiple genders - some forms of single-celled animals on Earth have on the order of a hundred genders*.  



*Yes, I know you were taught they reproduced asexually in school.  Humans don't separate the steps of exchanging genetic information and producing new individuals.  Ciliates do separate those steps.


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## Crothian (May 4, 2011)

JustKim said:


> I don't think I would care, unless one of the genders is clearly analogous to women. Playing a female character is a point of reference for me, and if there's no point of reference to be found then I'm not inclined to automatically choose one gender, and I don't feel unfairly penalized for playing what comes naturally.




Is all about being unfairly penalized?  What if the gender you wanted to play got bonuses but no real penalties then?  Or it was well balanced and the penalties were done fairly?


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## JustKim (May 4, 2011)

Crothian said:


> Is all about being unfairly penalized?  What if the gender you wanted to play got bonuses but no real penalties then?  Or it was well balanced and the penalties were done fairly?



I don't understand how you can ask me how I would feel about well balanced game mechanics attached to gender. It doesn't matter how balanced they are, they shouldn't exist. If they exist, they marginalize some choices and promote others. I want the full range of choices when I play a female character, no more and no less.


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## Umbran (May 4, 2011)

JustKim said:


> I don't understand how you can ask me how I would feel about well balanced game mechanics attached to gender.  It doesn't matter how balanced they are, they shouldn't exist. If they exist, they marginalize some choices and promote others. I want the full range of choices when I play a female character, no more and no less.




Well, we have game mechanics for species (elf, dwarf, human, and so on) - that does more marginalizing of some choices and not others, right?  Do you object to them?  How are gender mechanics different than race mechanics?  

Note, I'm not a fan of gender-based mechanics for humans or near-humans (like dwarves and elves and orcs, and so on), but I think the answer to the above questions are important to the discussion.


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## Crothian (May 4, 2011)

JustKim said:


> I don't understand how you can ask me how I would feel about well balanced game mechanics attached to gender. It doesn't matter how balanced they are, they shouldn't exist. If they exist, they marginalize some choices and promote others. I want the full range of choices when I play a female character, no more and no less.




I'm not talking about gender based level limits or class restrictions like in 1e.  You would still have the full options of choices like everyone in the game has.  Lots of races have bonuses and penalties and that does not prevent them from being whatever they want.

Also, what if the gender based modifiers were only positive (no negatives at all)?  Does that make a difference?


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## GSHamster (May 4, 2011)

D&D should not only reflect "realism", it also should reflect fantasy stories and literature.

And one real change since the days of 1st Ed is the increasing prevalence of female heroines.[1] Especially in YA and urban fantasy. The kickass female warrior is a genuine archetype at this point.

I think that gender stat differences no longer represent how modern fantasy literature views women. And that's an additional reason to not bother with them.

[1] Though, to be fair, even Tolkien had Eowyn.


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## Janx (May 4, 2011)

TwoSix said:


> It's pretty easy to accept "no difference between genders" if you also accept that character creation rules don't have to be world modeling rules.
> 
> Sure, on average, men are stronger.  But a D&D hero isn't constrained by the limitations of the mundane individual.
> 
> (Or, at least, doesn't have to be constrained, no offense to simulationists/fiction-firsters/whatever all y'all call yourself these days.)




Also consider that the average NPCs may follow this logic.  average men are stronger, and average women are weaker.

But PCs are heroes.  They naturally are better than average, and as a result, their stats are subject to any "sexist" skew.

Furthermore, consider that overall, male gamers outnumber female gamers.  Assuming each gamer plays their gender, then the % of female PCs will be small, much like the "strong women are rare" logic that a GM seeking rules like this would have been going for.

Basically, by doing nothing, the statistical spread is close enough to reality.

By making rules that make female PCs weaker, you are basically biasing the game against female PCs.  In today's world, that smells like sexism, and isn't worth the political hassle, let alone any actual benefit to the game.

its kind of like "what was Gary thinking when he wrote those rules?"  Were female PCs such a problem that he had to put a cap on that to block all the gaming abuse?  Was he sick and tired of every gamer (who at the time, was probably a male), playing a slutty PMS-ticating stereotype that if he had to roleplay one more seduction encounter he'd shoot himself?  bad enough he had to roleplay bar maids getting hit on, now he's got to deal with male player's warped view of what it is to be a woman in Greyhawk.


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## Crothian (May 4, 2011)

D&D has very little in common with today's Urban Fantasy except for many of them have characters that play D&D or reference it in some way.


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## Barastrondo (May 4, 2011)

Crothian said:


> D&D has very little in common with today's Urban Fantasy except for many of them have characters that play D&D or reference it in some way.




Whoo, I disagree profoundly. A Song of Ice and Fire, the Abhorsen trilogy, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Codex Alera, Bas-Lag, the Taltos books, the Malazan books, Deed of Paksennarion -- all written by people who once gamed regularly or still do, and it frequently shows if it isn't out-and-out showcased (like Mieville's "adventurers" in Perdido Street Station). 

It's in that weird place where you can argue that yes, D&D isn't as directly inspired by pre-existing fiction as it once was -- but at the same time, a lot of what's on bookshelves is directly or indirectly inspired by D&D. The only real difference is that most fantasy fiction that owes something to D&D scales back and limits its palette, whereas D&D, as always, incorporates whatever it can into itself.


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## Crothian (May 4, 2011)

Barastrondo said:


> Whoo, I disagree profoundly. A Song of Ice and Fire, the Abhorsen trilogy, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Codex Alera, Bas-Lag, the Taltos books, the Malazan books, Deed of Paksennarion -- all written by people who once gamed regularly or still do, and it frequently shows if it isn't out-and-out showcased (like Mieville's "adventurers" in Perdido Street Station).




No you don't.    That's not what I define as Urban Fantasy so our definitions are different for the term.  From Wikipedia

"Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements" and "The prerequisite is that they must be primarily set in a city."  

So, I look at fantasy set in cities but also modern times like Dresden Files, Mercy Thompson, Weather Wardon series, Kelly Armstrong Women of the Other World, Kim Harrison's series, Anita Blake, and others like those.

Edit: And I'm not saying one definition is more correct just that we are obviously not thinking about the same exact genre when we hear the term.


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## Barastrondo (May 4, 2011)

Crothian said:


> No you don't.    That's not what I define as Urban Fantasy so our definitions are different for the term.  From Wikipedia
> 
> "Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements" and "The prerequisite is that they must be primarily set in a city."
> 
> So, I look at fantasy set in cities but also modern times like Dresden Files, Mercy Thompson, Weather Wardon series, Kelly Armstrong Women of the Other World, Kim Harrison's series, Anita Blake, and others like those.




I had to go back and reread the jump that went from "fantasy stories and literature" over to "urban fantasy" in particular. I think I found it!

So, yes, we don't disagree. My post is probably less of a disagreement with yours and more of posting anecdotal support for GSHamster's position. Books written now take more of an inclusive stance overall than they once did, and perhaps part of that is due to gaming.

(Urban fantasy is probably more of an argument why games like Vampire should not have mechanical differences between the sexes -- which is fortunate, as they don't.)


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## Janx (May 4, 2011)

Barastrondo said:


> Whoo, I disagree profoundly. A Song of Ice and Fire, the Abhorsen trilogy, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Codex Alera, Bas-Lag, the Taltos books, the Malazan books, Deed of Paksennarion -- all written by people who once gamed regularly or still do, and it frequently shows if it isn't out-and-out showcased (like Mieville's "adventurers" in Perdido Street Station).
> 
> It's in that weird place where you can argue that yes, D&D isn't as directly inspired by pre-existing fiction as it once was -- but at the same time, a lot of what's on bookshelves is directly or indirectly inspired by D&D. The only real difference is that most fantasy fiction that owes something to D&D scales back and limits its palette, whereas D&D, as always, incorporates whatever it can into itself.




I don't think you 2 are debating the same thing.

the books B cites are Fantasy novels written by gamers

The books C alludes to are Urban Fantasy novels that have characters that are often gamers.

Running an Anita Blake, Dresden Files, Mercy Thomson RPG game would be quite different from a "traditional" D&D game.  Which is what I believe C is talking about.

Urban Fantasy is NOT the same as Fantasy (assuming I mean sword and sorcery for the most part in a pseudo medieval world, definitely not our world in modern times way).

In the case of Codex Alera written by Jim Butcher, who not only is a gamer, but also a LARPer, he also writes the Dresden Files, where the protagonist also plays a D&D-like game.

D&D seems to be inspired by sword and sorcery fiction.  It doesn't seem to be inspired by Urban Fantasy, as that genre has a diffrent style than D&D.

For the record, I read Dresden Files.  My wife reads a metric-crapton of Urban Fantasy as her current obsession.  I've read some of the new comics, and watched the shows with her.  I'm fairly "up" on it.

D&D has no Saturday night specials, Chlorofiends, walmart parking lot battles, vampires with teenage angst, issues with the general populace being unaware of the magical, or everything's normal but voodoo and zombie's work.

It just ain't the same, though I could use the rules to run a game (more like d20 modern + the magic add-on)

On the gender thing, It's my observation by my wife's books, that they more often have a strong female protagonist. And a lot of sex.  dresden files being the exception (he abstains a lot, and he's a guy).  Heck, the Dresden TV show got canceled partly because SyFy bough ads for younger men, but the demographic watching it was 30something women.  it also got canceled because the CEO invested in wrestling, and the VP backing the show didn't.


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## GSHamster (May 4, 2011)

Yeah, I meant Urban Fantasy as Crothian points up. It was more of an example of a sub-genre of Fantasy.  I was sort of thinking about fantasy RPGs in general, rather D&D specifically, when I wrote that post.

But it wasn't the only sub-genre I pointed. Young Adult fantasy is often a lot closer to D&D, and strong female protagonists are very large part of that sub-genre.

Do you really want to take a potential female gamer--one who's grown up with stories by Tamora Pierce or Robin McKinley--and then tell her that in D&D, her Keladry of Mindalen is a worse fighter solely because she is female?

Exactly how long do you think that female gamer will last as a D&D player?


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## JustKim (May 5, 2011)

Umbran said:


> Well, we have game mechanics for species (elf, dwarf, human, and so on) - that does more marginalizing of some choices and not others, right?  Do you object to them?  How are gender mechanics different than race mechanics?
> 
> Note, I'm not a fan of gender-based mechanics for humans or near-humans (like dwarves and elves and orcs, and so on), but I think the answer to the above questions are important to the discussion.



A better parallel would be to compare game mechanics based on gender to game mechanics based on real racial ethnicities.

Crothian, if everything is either male or female, and you give +2 Strength to everything that is male, that's little different from a Strength penalty to everything that's female. Either way, my female warrior is inferior to her male counterpart in some way. Her role has been relegated so that being a very good warrior is no longer a choice. If it's been replaced by a bonus that enables her to be a very good healer, that doesn't matter one speck to me if I want to play a female warrior. That's what I mean when I say I want the full range of choices available to male characters.


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## Crothian (May 5, 2011)

JustKim said:


> Crothian, if everything is either male or female, and you give +2 Strength to everything that is male, that's little different from a Strength penalty to everything that's female. Either way, my female warrior is inferior to her male counterpart in some way. Her role has been relegated so that being a very good warrior is no longer a choice. If it's been replaced by a bonus that enables her to be a very good healer, that doesn't matter one speck to me if I want to play a female warrior. That's what I mean when I say I want the full range of choices available to male characters.




It could be we are looking at the game from very different places.  Numbers are IMO not the be all end all of a character.  I would not consider a Fighter (any edition) with a 16 Strength to be less worthy of one with an 18.  Even if all other traits and abilities were equal which we know is never the case. Many times in my own limited experience it is more about what actions the character takes and how the character is played that define it more so then stats on a sheet.  But as I said that is something not everyone does as play styles differ.  

Also, the literature of young women in fantasy are filled with characters that are not as strong as their male counterparts but still become better fighters through emphasizing their own combat advantages.  So, it seems like it would be an accepted arch type by the genre.


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## Celebrim (May 5, 2011)

JustKim said:


> A better parallel would be to compare game mechanics based on gender to game mechanics based on real racial ethnicities.
> 
> Crothian, if everything is either male or female, and you give +2 Strength to everything that is male, that's little different from a Strength penalty to everything that's female. Either way, my female warrior is inferior to her male counterpart in some way. Her role has been relegated so that being a very good warrior is no longer a choice. If it's been replaced by a bonus that enables her to be a very good healer, that doesn't matter one speck to me if I want to play a female warrior. That's what I mean when I say I want the full range of choices available to male characters.




This depends very greatly on the other details of the implementation of the system. 

1) In the system, is strength the be-all-end of all of being a great warrior?  
2) In the system, is there a way for a warrior to maximize the benefits of being 'wise'?

Suppose we had an elective set of powers that gave various bonuses to warriors on the basis of high wisdom: reduced chance of surprise, accuracy bonus with missile weapons, better initiative, better defence versus combat manuevers, and so forth.   Suppose further more that in combination with the usual perks of high wisdom a 'high wisdom fighter' is a viable concept under the rules so that conceivable one might be tempted to build a warrior which did not maximize strength in order to buy a reasonable level of wisdom.  Under such a system it is conceivable that a trait, 'Female', which granted a racial bonus to Wisdom in exchange for a racial penalty to strength would be desirable for certain builds.  Sure, you might be inferior in some ways, but you might be superior in others.

We might as well complain that characters with the 'Female' trait made better wise warriors than characters without.  

The ultimate question at stake as you make it seems to be no more than whether gender ought to be nothing more than fluff and window dressing.  I'd want to know why gender alone of all things seems to you to be best rendered as fluff?  Would you really prefer that any other significant aspect of of a characters background not be reflected on the character sheet, or is it that you think that gender is entirely cosmetic and superficial?


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## Celebrim (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> Also, the literature of young women in fantasy are filled with characters that are not as strong as their male counterparts but still become better fighters through emphasizing their own combat advantages.  So, it seems like it would be an accepted arch type by the genre.




I'm very strongly reminded of the scenes in 'The Gamers II: Dorkness Rising' where the pushy chauvanist character insists that the fighter has to be a burly, stupid tank in order to be effective, only to have the female attendee successfully create an optimized fighter that abuses various options in the game system that favor combatants with a high dexterity and intelligence.


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## Janx (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> Is all about being unfairly penalized?  What if the gender you wanted to play got bonuses but no real penalties then?  Or it was well balanced and the penalties were done fairly?




Let's assume that a +2 strength is as good as +2 dex (sort of is, one gives +1 to hit, the other gives +1 to AC, negating it)

Giving males +2 STR and females +2 DEX would shift what gender I have to play to optimize for a class.

Want to be a burly fighter, better be a male.  Going to play a rogue, better be a female.

Sure, somebody can argue "it's only +2, whats the diff between 16 and 18" but the reality is, I'd rather have an 18 if I can get it.

Now elves get a +2 dex, so what's the difference between picking a race, and picking a gender?

I think the difference can be pretty big.  Picking a race is fluff.  It's part of let's pretend.  Picking gender?  That's something some people struggle with and have surgeries for.

Top that off with playing cross-gender is usually creepy, offensively done, or so bland that there wasn't a point to doing it.  So why encourage or penalize it?


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## pawsplay (May 5, 2011)

Plus +2 Str and +2 Dex is absurdly high from a realistic standpoint. Aside from the fact that Str isn't a perfect analog to males greater muscle density or Dex for a female's greater flexibility. There is no reason to believe, at all, that men are more powerful kickers, or that women are better marksmen.


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## Eric Tolle (May 5, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> The even bigger problem with your post is that what is realistic (and therefore what is selectively realistic) is a matter of opinion, as your racial (racist) sterotyping indicates.  The more usual problem is that we can't agree over what realism is, not over whether we are being selective about it.



I myself think that once a game starts having characters that can destroy cities with a spell, or travel between planes, then reality is pretty much out the window. But it's amazing how people who won't bat an eye at the idea of giant flying birds, or humanoids a hundred feet tall, will suddenly start talking about the ramifications of skeletal structure and musculature cross sections when talking about about the strength of human men and women.



> In full disclosure, my game doesn't automatically track gender because in fantasy conventions there is usually no physical difference between women and men (even though this is admittedly pure fantasy).   However, there is an option to take traits 'Fairer Sex' which radically alters your races standard attribute modifiers, or 'Second Class Citizen' which gives you social penalties reflective of the broader mysogyny that is often present in ancient inspired cultures.   (I suppose you could jokingly argue that the 'Meathead' trait is the male equivalent of these.)
> 
> Thus, if the player wants to have a character whose gender is strongly reflected on his or character sheet, he or she may have it, but the game system doesn't forcibly impose that on you.   I should note however that I very frequently impose those traits on my NPC's.




And this is actually getting to the crux of the problem, which is more fundamental than simple stat bonuses; the depiction of men as the baseline for people, and the othering of women as something abnormal.

Consider: why do you have the traits "Fairer Sex" and "Second Class Citizen", and not say, ", instead of say, "Masculine virtue" and "Gentleman's Privilege"? Why is the default assumption that a female character has to be essentially be a pretend male, and to be female, is to be weaker and oppressed- in other words, not suitable for adventuring? And don't EVEN try to respond with "realism"- we both know that actual historical roles for women were far more complex and variable than that. There were far more complex dynamics at work than the "weak oppressed manipulators" stereotype that games such as Pendragon (the John Normen of rpgs) would have us believe.

I oppose gender-based stat differences because they always, invariably make the world revolve around men, make men the norm, and make women a deviation from that norm. They in essence state that the game is a man's world, with women as intruders. And you know, women have to deal with too much of this sort of  attitude in real life. They don't need it in their role playing games as well.


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## Jon_Dahl (May 5, 2011)

Many of you are asking "why have difference between genders/sexes?".

It's a good question. Let's think of fantasy races. If you would accept that there many kind of elves (in one subrace) and they can't be defined in one single way, then racial bonuses and penalties would seem harsh. Just like Pawsplay said, it's harsh to give larger than +1 bonuses due to gender. But giving +2 racial bonuses is also pretty strong.

But still we like (I guess?) that high elves get some penalties and bonuses, thus radically simplifying all high elves.

Doing the same (bonuses & penalties) for genders would effectively "double" the amount "races" from a game-mechanic view.

D&D certainly doesn't represent realism, and I wasn't talking about just D&D in general. Actually if you ask me, I'm sorry that this discussion is bit too much about D&D. At the moment "gender" is simply a box that we fill and nothing more. The question is do we want more? General consensus is against it and it seems that the 70's are dead and buried. I can't say that I'm sorry about it.


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## ExploderWizard (May 5, 2011)

JustKim said:


> I don't understand how you can ask me how I would feel about well balanced game mechanics attached to gender. It doesn't matter how balanced they are, they shouldn't exist. If they exist, they marginalize some choices and promote others. I want the full range of choices when I play a female character, no more and no less.




How is this any different than racial modifiers that promote certain choices over others? 

My halfling would do better as a thief than a fighter regardless of sex, that just the way the game rules treat halflings. 

Different stat modifiers for males and females is getting too rules fiddly for my tastes but for flavor I don't have a problem with gender restrictions for certain things such as being a member of an order of monks who are exclusively male or an order of knighthood with only female members permitted. 

As long as the options for both sexes are equally viable I have no problem with them being different. Differences add a lot of flavor to a campaign world.


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## Barastrondo (May 5, 2011)

ExploderWizard said:


> How is this any different than racial modifiers that promote certain choices over others?'




Generally speaking, because the players sitting around the table are not halflings. They may identify with halflings, but not for the reasons of "I look at a halfling in the mirror every morning." 



> Different stat modifiers for males and females is getting too rules fiddly for my tastes but for flavor I don't have a problem with gender restrictions for certain things such as being a member of an order of monks who are exclusively male or an order of knighthood with only female members permitted.




Also, the advantage to gender differences in social structures is that social structures are things that players have a chance to change. If the players determine that it's silly and short-sighted for all Ghedeye monks to be male, they can undergo the process of reforming the order and have a shot at success.


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## ExploderWizard (May 5, 2011)

Barastrondo said:


> Generally speaking, because the players sitting around the table are not halflings. They may identify with halflings, but not for the reasons of "I look at a halfling in the mirror every morning."




So you know for a fact that no one with genetic dwarfism has ever played D&D? I think that someone the size of a halfling could identify with one almost as well as female player to a female PC. 




Barastrondo said:


> Also, the advantage to gender differences in social structures is that social structures are things that players have a chance to change. If the players determine that it's silly and short-sighted for all Ghedeye monks to be male, they can undergo the process of reforming the order and have a shot at success.




In a magical fantasy world, not even physical attributes are permenant. Depending on the campaign world it may be easier to raise attributes than bring about drastic social change.


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## NewJeffCT (May 5, 2011)

Jon_Dahl said:


> This concept must be totally alien to younger gamers, but old school enworlders still remember the 70's. We had a game called "AD&D 1st edition". It was a massive game back in the day.
> Halfling females had the lowest STR-cap, but if you made a male halfling character, the cap was higher. All genders had difference in weight, height and STR-cap. There was no benefit from playing a female character, and I don't remember anyone ever raising their voice over that issue. Nowadays we only have differences in size, and no one is arguing that. But that's where the differences end.




yes, but back in the 1970s, women playing D&D were few & far between.  I don't even remember playing with a woman until the late 1990s. Perhaps because their choices were limited in the 70s & 80s was one part of the reason so few women played?

However, while women are still a distinct minority in gaming, there is definitely are lot more women playing RPGs than there were 30 or so years ago.  Perhaps its because the game is more inclusive now than it was in the past?  Women's choices in the game are the same as a man's choices.

Plus, I have usually played that PCs are a cut above the normal populace, so I don't see why a female PC can't be a strong as a male PC?


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## Umbran (May 5, 2011)

JustKim said:


> A better parallel would be to compare game mechanics based on gender to game mechanics based on real racial ethnicities.




Which doesn't directly answer my question, but does so indirectly.

Let me posit - the issue isn't game balance, or mechanics, per se.  It is the player's real-world views on gender (and racial) balance and/or equality, and desire to have those real-world views reflected in their game world.  It is not acceptable to the player to have the fantasy world deviate from the real one in such a matter.

If the character in question is sufficiently non-human, then the analogy to the real world breaks down, and the differentiation becomes more acceptable.

Any fiction is taken in context of the culture that creates the fiction, and will tend to reflect the cultures social mores, and the difficulties it has with those social mores.


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## JustKim (May 5, 2011)

ExploderWizard said:


> How is this any different than racial modifiers that promote certain choices over others?



It's different because I don't have any choice whether or not to be a woman in real life. If I want to play a character I can relate to, I'm going to want to play a female character. If playing a female character has game mechanics attached, and those game mechanics discourage some choices, then I myself am discouraged from playing those roles unless I step out of my comfort zone and play a male character.

If I'm a young girl just getting into D&D and want to play who I'd like to be in a fantasy world, I'm being told that even a fantasy world is not enough to put me on equal terms with boys.
If I'm just having lighthearted fun with my friends and we play D&D with these rules, I'm having stereotypes thrown in my face. If I play an inferior female warrior, it's always going to be lauded over me that I'm not quite as good as a male warrior. Any time I miss an attack by 1 point, it will be because my character is a woman. Please let that sink in: my heroic fantasy character can fail solely on the basis that she is a woman.

A hobby I would otherwise enjoy would be tainted.


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## ExploderWizard (May 5, 2011)

JustKim said:


> It's different because I don't have any choice whether or not to be a woman in real life. If I want to play a character I can relate to, I'm going to want to play a female character. If playing a female character has game mechanics attached, and those game mechanics discourage some choices, then I myself am discouraged from playing those roles unless I step out of my comfort zone and play a male character.
> 
> If I'm a young girl just getting into D&D and want to play who I'd like to be in a fantasy world, I'm being told that even a fantasy world is not enough to put me on equal terms with boys.
> If I'm just having lighthearted fun with my friends and we play D&D with these rules, I'm having stereotypes thrown in my face. If I play an inferior female warrior, it's always going to be lauded over me that I'm not quite as good as a male warrior. Any time I miss an attack by 1 point, it will be because my character is a woman. Please let that sink in: my heroic fantasy character can fail solely on the basis that she is a woman.
> ...




It can go the other way as well. A male player plays a male PC in order to better identify with him. Lets say that the same game that gives the female PC a STR penalty gives males a CHA penalty. If this guy wants to play a bard and be the best mechanically, he would have to play a female. 
My bard could suck solely on the basis that he is a man.

Oh, and don't forget that expressing any displeasure at this disadvantage would possibly get me laughed at for wanting to play a sissy bard in the first place in some areas.


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## Celebrim (May 5, 2011)

Eric Tolle said:


> I myself think that once a game starts having characters that can destroy cities with a spell, or travel between planes, then reality is pretty much out the window.




Do you really or do you think it is out the window in just special contexts?  I'd be very much surprised if you really felt it was out the window and I've never yet played the game where it was.  For one thing, a game in which reality was out the window would require so much exposition to understand, that it could only be played by people who'd spent a life time contemplating alternatives.  



> But it's amazing how people who won't bat an eye at the idea of giant flying birds, or humanoids a hundred feet tall, will suddenly start talking about the ramifications of skeletal structure and musculature cross sections when talking about about the strength of human men and women.




To begin with, how do you know I don't bat an eye at giant flying birds or humanoids a hundred feet tall.   I used to play with the GULLIVER house rules for GURPS 3e.   I think that more than sufficiently demonstrates a commitment on my part to internal physical consistancy.  

But beyond that, while I have no problem with someone saying, "In my fantasy reality, insects can weigh 400 lbs and still be agile and women are as strong as men" (and my rules reflect that), I equally have no problem with "In my fantasy reality, insects can weigh 400 lbs and still be agile, but women are realistically less strong than men."   Those are entirely preferences and I don't see them as unreasonable.   



> And this is actually getting to the crux of the problem, which is more fundamental than simple stat bonuses; the depiction of men as the baseline for people, and the othering of women as something abnormal.




Oh dear.  So, I suppose you have no problem with humans being the baseline for races?   Having two possible genders to select would not being having "men as the baseline for people".   Men are the baseline for people by default when you don't have gender selection.  When you don't have explicit mechanical gender selection, then you are playing a man mechanically and your non-male gender is fluff.  (This is another thing that gets lampooned well in 'Dorkness Rising'.)  In my case, the baselines for women is that they are identical to men; you only get away from that baseline deliberately.   

In my opinion, you've got it exactly backwards: "Why is the default assumption that a female character has to essentially be a pretend male..."?  Indeed.  That is exactly it.

Why is it that in order to express respect for femeninity you have to pretend it doesn't exist?   Why is it that to express respect for women, you have to value them for excelling at the traditional martial virtue of "beats people up good", and if they are not burly she-males that kick butt and have casual sex then in some fashion we aren't portraying 'strong women' and we are sexist?  I see it exactly the opposite of that.   All these females with 18 STR and capable of out brawling 250 lb hulks are merely demonstrating our hatred or discomfort with feminity.  They aren't women at all, but men in sexy woman suits.  We may prefer fantasy women to real ones, but that discomfort with reality doesn't make one less sexist.

Holding that men and women are of equal legal, social, moral, and spiritual worth in no way requires me to live in a fantasy where they are identical.  I can choose to do so for the purpose of a fantasy game, but some one chooses to not do so I don't regard it as a moral failing.  (And perhaps quite the opposite.)



> Consider: why do you have the traits "Fairer Sex" and "Second Class Citizen"




Well, first of all, "second class citizen" is intended to cover all situations where the character is discriminated against in the society whether for racial reasons (the character is a half-goblin) or social reasons (such as the character is a slave).   My world is heavily grounded in the ugly realities of the ancient world, which often as not, are not so distantly removed realities as we'd like to think.   So it certainly wasn't created with women only in mind.

Secondly, "Fairer Sex" was created as an alternative to forcing someone with a female character concept into conforming to reality because in the fantasy world - much as I disapprove of the sterotype - the character concept of 'kick butt woman' exists.  I'm not going to force someone not to play a Sydney Bristow, Kim Possible, Beatrix Kiddo, etc. etc. if that is what they want, but frankly I find the model to be inherently sexist (and unnecessary).  

Mary Edwards Walker didn't win awards for valor because she could out punch heavy weight champion boxers.  Leigh Ann Hester has martial credentials that are second to none, but doesn't need to be put into a ring to prove it.   There isn't some sort of competition where women have to have male upper body strength and melee skill to be valuable, least of all in a world where magic is real.

Honestly, "Fairer Sex" isn't realistic either though.  It's purpose is to provide some degree of balance to the option of playing a female in a game that relative to real life puts a much greater emphasis on the value of beating things up.   I doubt even in the ancient world martial prowess was quite as key to success in life as it is in a fantasy RPG, and its that unreality that I have to deal with.



> , and not say, ", instead of say, "Masculine virtue" and "Gentleman's Privilege"?




Courage? Noble Rank?  Personally, I'm pretty much inclined to say "Why not?" providing you can back up the words with mechanics of some sort.  What mechanics did you have in mind behind the ideas, or are you just throwing words around?  As soon as you can define what either means in game terms, I'd probably consider them.



> And don't EVEN try to respond with "realism"- we both know that actual historical roles for women were far more complex and variable than that. There were far more complex dynamics at work than the "weak oppressed manipulators" stereotype that games such as Pendragon (the John Normen of rpgs) would have us believe.




Maybe so, but by and large those real roles didn't include 'front line martial combatant'.  The game itself is skewed however to valuing martial combat and prowess.  That's why the game 'revolves around men'.  For the most part, war and battle are 'a man's world' with women as intruders, and to the extent that you make the game about war and battle you are making it revolve around "masculine virtue".  You don't make the world revolve around men by having stat differences.  You make the world revolve around men by making prowess in melee combat the standard by which people are judged to have worth.  Because if that is your standard, then it doesn't matter whether you have stat differences, you are saying essentially the only thing that matters is that one thing that men uniquely excel at and the only way for a women to be valuable is for her to pretend to be a man in female form.


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## Janx (May 5, 2011)

JustKim said:


> It's different because I don't have any choice whether or not to be a woman in real life. If I want to play a character I can relate to, I'm going to want to play a female character. If playing a female character has game mechanics attached, and those game mechanics discourage some choices, then I myself am discouraged from playing those roles unless I step out of my comfort zone and play a male character.
> 
> If I'm a young girl just getting into D&D and want to play who I'd like to be in a fantasy world, I'm being told that even a fantasy world is not enough to put me on equal terms with boys.
> If I'm just having lighthearted fun with my friends and we play D&D with these rules, I'm having stereotypes thrown in my face. If I play an inferior female warrior, it's always going to be lauded over me that I'm not quite as good as a male warrior. Any time I miss an attack by 1 point, it will be because my character is a woman. Please let that sink in: my heroic fantasy character can fail solely on the basis that she is a woman.
> ...





That nails it right there.  For the purposes of a lets pretend game, let's not saddle the girls with artificial constraints.  If the cost of that is "muscle bound women warriors with 18 str)" and their chain mail is no longer a bikini, no big loss, because it was all in our heads and I've still got Elmore art to look at.


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## Gryph (May 5, 2011)

I haven't read the entire thread yet so this may have been covered.

I have always been fortunate in having female players in my gaming groups. Since some of those groups date back to those days of differing characterstic adjustments/maxima for different genders, I have been involved in this discussion a few times.

The best comment by one of the women was, "It isn't fun". After that I and the rest of our gaming group abolished gender adjustments and never gave it another thought.

We play rpgs for fun and escapism and, for a lot of us, some level of wish fulfillment. As others have said in this thread, why get hung up on realism on this one point, especially if its going to impinge on someone's fun.


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## Man in the Funny Hat (May 5, 2011)

Jon_Dahl said:


> Ok, I know that this is a sensitive subject, but... In RPGs, should there be difference between genders?



As far as ROLEPLAYING goes, most definitely a resounding YES. Mechanically? Why bother? Attempting to FORCE mechanical limitations/advantages between genders isn't going to provide the roleplaying lead which is what you really want.



> This concept must be totally alien to younger gamers, but old school enworlders still remember the 70's. We had a game called "AD&D 1st edition". It was a massive game back in the day.
> Halfling females had the lowest STR-cap, but if you made a male halfling character, the cap was higher. All genders had difference in weight, height and STR-cap. There was no benefit from playing a female character, and I don't remember anyone ever raising their voice over that issue. Nowadays we only have differences in size, and no one is arguing that. But that's where the differences end.




The '70's was indeed a different time, but it is in part in thanks to the changing attitudes of that era that we have come to learn more about the REAL differences between males and females, not just the perceived ones. 1E was designed and operated on what are NOW significantly outdated perceptions but there ARE still practical differences between men and women in the real world. In a fantasy world - if you feel it is necesary for YOUR PLAYERS - you can institute mechanical differences between the sexes to suggest whatever paradigm you want. As far as the core game rules are concerned, however, there's more and better reasons to avoid trying to forcibly implement such considerations.



> In my game I treat PC (creation of) women and men the same, although I feel really frustated about the fact that 150-lbs PC can have the same strength as 300-lbs PC...



This is strictly an issue with height/weight data not being tied to actual attributes. Personally, I don't percieve of strong women characters in RPGS as looking like female weightlifters - I tend to picture them looking more like Sarah Conner in Terminator 2, or Vasquez in Aliens; strength not from muscle bulk but muscle conditioning.



> Men and women are the same, women just are lighter and shorter? In the farms 18-year old girls often participate in hauling the logs with men or is there some reason why women stay home and men do physical work in your fantasy world? Or do they?



Despite decades of relentless political correctness I at least perceive my own game worlds to be fairly old-fashioned in regards to gender roles and expectations, but player characters who defy those expectations are seen as being just as "outside the norm" as all other player characters are anyway. Characters who blow away gender stereotypes are generally not singled out simply because of being un-stereotypical. I try to think of player characters as being unstereotypical regardless of gender - and NPC's treat them as unstereotypical for THAT reason.


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## Crothian (May 5, 2011)

Janx said:


> That nails it right there.  For the purposes of a lets pretend game, let's not saddle the girls with artificial constraints.  If the cost of that is "muscle bound women warriors with 18 str)" and their chain mail is no longer a bikini, no big loss, because it was all in our heads and I've still got Elmore art to look at.




Why do people assume that this has to be done negatively in such a way that would restrict options?  3e and 4e D&D and many other RPGs out there have completely done away with the idea that certain character types can only be certain classes or roles.  

What about game options like feats or prestige classes or traits or advantages flaws or whatever options the game calls them that have specific gender requirements?  This type of thing while rare is still something that is seen in some games  and all of them I can think of are for females only.  I don't recall seeing anything like this that was male only.  Do people have a problem with these as well?


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## Celebrim (May 5, 2011)

Janx said:


> That nails it right there.  For the purposes of a lets pretend game, let's not saddle the girls with artificial constraints.  If the cost of that is "muscle bound women warriors with 18 str)" and their chain mail is no longer a bikini




But, it is "muscle bound women warriors with 18 str" that is unreal and artificial.  For the purposes of "let's play pretend", I agree we can have female STR 22 melee brawlers, but for the purposes of this discussion lets not pretend that the lack of contraint is real and the constraint is artificial.

Likewise let's not pretend that adhering to unreality of fantasy swordswomen is what gives us women in mail hauberks rather than chainmail bikinis.  It's the unreality of the muscle bound kick butt warrior that gives us and is tied to the "chain mail bikini".  Quite the contrary, it is going to be the game designer/master who insists on reality who is most going to oppose the "chainmail bikini".   I take this to the degree that my game doesn't even use the word "chainmail" nor "plate mail" or any other oxymoron.   Fantasyisms like "studded leather armor" don't appear on the equipment table.  

The muscle bound women in the chain mail bikini is ultimately a male centric fantasy that is less about empowering women than it is about demystifying them for a bunch of introverted boyish nerds.  That it is also a fantasy that can be enjoyed by women is undoubted and unsurprising; afterall, I like bonnet dramas even though they are ultimely female centric fantasies.



> ...no big loss




With that I agree.   The presence or absence of a female template (or male template) doesn't strike me as a thing of particularly great moment.  I personally don't care that much either way.   To the extent that I've been getting up on my soap box to denounce not having gender templating in a game, it's mostly because I don't like hearing this argument simplified down to "you're immoral to have gender templates" as if the argument was that clear cut and simple.  

The whole 'realism' vs. 'unrealism' argument that seems to be the dominate mode of debate in this thread strikes me as a proxy argument, because ultimately I can't figure out why it would be worth having if it wasn't.  It's a simple fact that women have about 3/4's of the strength of men for a given body weight, and are only about 85% of male size.  This extends over the full range of human atheletic ability.   This is a far large difference in ability that is expressed by any of the D&D racial templates, so any talk about how it isn't realistic because men and women don't differ that much is bizarre.  Whatever really underlies the argument, it can't be the facts of human physical ability.


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## Gryph (May 5, 2011)

ExploderWizard said:


> It can go the other way as well. A male player plays a male PC in order to better identify with him. Lets say that the same game that gives the female PC a STR penalty gives males a CHA penalty. If this guy wants to play a bard and be the best mechanically, he would have to play a female.
> My bard could suck solely on the basis that he is a man.
> 
> Oh, and don't forget that expressing any displeasure at this disadvantage would possibly get me laughed at for wanting to play a sissy bard in the first place in some areas.





Great example...oh wait, that game doesn't exist.


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## pawsplay (May 5, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Oh dear.  So, I suppose you have no problem with humans being the baseline for races?   Having two possible genders to select would not being having "men as the baseline for people".   Men are the baseline for people by default when you don't have gender selection.




Race is quite a different thing unless, as I would be surprised to find out, we have real-life dragonborn posting on this forum. Yeah, it does kind of suck that men are considered the baseline. But if you try to model real-world differences "accurately" (ignoring such context as whether these so-called humans live on Earth), for virtually all game systems, the difference is going to be one "point" or less. That's virtually by definition, most games do not define attributes any more finely than being in the same statistical band, and as noted previously, men and women overlap a lot in most areas. 

So, you basically have two choices. Make one sex the default, and the other a "variant race," meaning that a female human has the same relationship to a human that a drow does to an elf, ... or, defining a genderless human and requiring everyone to take a gender template. I think there are definitely reasons to prefer the second approach.


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## pawsplay (May 5, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> The whole 'realism' vs. 'unrealism' argument that seems to be the dominate mode of debate in this thread strikes me as a proxy argument, because ultimately I can't figure out why it would be worth having if it wasn't.  It's a simple fact that women have about 3/4's of the strength of men for a given body weight, and are only about 85% of male size.  This extends over the full range of human atheletic ability.




Do you mean for statistically average humans, or for men and women participating in the same activity?



> This is a far large difference in ability that is expressed by any of the D&D racial templates, so any talk about how it isn't realistic because men and women don't differ that much is bizarre.




If by far larger you mean, a good deal less large.  Let's suppose we go with your 75% of 85% figure, which would give each average woman 63% of the lifting ability of a man. Assuming a man averages Str 10 in D&D3e, that gives him a base carrying capacity of 33 lbs. A woman would then average 21 lbs. That translates into Str 7.

That would imply men and women actually average 8.5 and 11.5 respectively, since 10 is said to be the average of everybody. That is only a +3 difference, for just about the most favorable test (raw lifting capacity) for men I know of, other than baseball throwing. That is _exactly_ the same as the +1 Str and +2 for lifting capacity I gave earlier, which as I said was generous (which the .75 times .85 is generous as well, since I suspect we are not comparing people who naturally gravitate to the Fighter profession to each other).  That makes the difference considerable _less_ than the published differences between any given "strong" race compared to a human (with the possible exception of some early 3.0 third party stuff with odd ability modifiers).

Even if you aggregate the differences I suggested before, you don't get a whole race's worth of differences.

EDIT: Fixing the typo Dracorat caught.


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## NewJeffCT (May 5, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Race is quite a different thing unless, as I would be surprised to find out, we have real-life dragonborn posting on this forum.




Bite your tongue - I know of at least three dragonborn who post on this forum on at least a semi-regular basis.  Not to mention two tieflings and an aasimar.  And, it's hard to keep track of all the elves & dwarves on the forums...


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## Dracorat (May 5, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> That would imply men and women actually average 8.5 and 11.5 respectively, since 10 is said to be the average of everybody. That is only a +2 difference,




When I went to school, the difference between 8 and 11 was 3. I knew they were cutting corners on curriculum these days, but I didn't realize that meant cutting out numbers from the number scale too.

I'll need to update my programs.


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## ExploderWizard (May 5, 2011)

Gryph said:


> Great example...oh wait, that game doesn't exist.




The argument at hand is, would such differences in mechanical advantage based on sex be acceptable if they were equally balanced? 

I don't know if any such systems exist. The example is theoretical.

A game that offers only advantages to one group and only penalties to the other isn't fair or balanced and not worth considering IMHO.


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## El Mahdi (May 5, 2011)

NewJeffCT said:


> Bite your tongue - I know of at least three dragonborn who post on this forum on at least a semi-regular basis. Not to mention two tieflings and an aasimar. And, it's hard to keep track of all the elves & dwarves on the forums...




And don't forget about all those Tinker Gnomes on the boards who are constantly messing about with the sites programming code!


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## Gryph (May 5, 2011)

ExploderWizard said:


> The argument at hand is, would such differences in mechanical advantage based on sex be acceptable if they were equally balanced?
> 
> I don't know if any such systems exist. The example is theoretical.
> 
> A game that offers only advantages to one group and only penalties to the other isn't fair or balanced and not worth considering IMHO.





I didn't realize you were trying to ask a question. 

I think JustKim answered that quite well earlier in the thread. Differing advantages will still make one gender an optimal choice over the other for some character concept. Why impose that on the players? How does making your gender the less optimal choice for a character you want to play make the game more fun than not having such a system?


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## ThirdWizard (May 5, 2011)

For anyone advocating different rules, think about this: Any implementation of this is basically giving people different rules (be they bonuses, penalties, alternate feats, traits, etc) based on their _real life_ sex, because people want to play the same sex in game that they are in real life most of the time. Is this really a thing that you want? Roleplaying is already male dominated, do you want to tell an interested female "Oh and here are the rules _you_ have to follow."


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## Celebrim (May 5, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Do you mean for statistically average humans, or for men and women participating in the same activity?




Both.  I mean that the comparison would hold true whether we were comparing women who engage in an atheletic activity at a high level with men who played the sport at a high level, or if we compared women who didn't engage in sports with men who also didn't.   Thus, it doesn't matter if we were comparing tennis players to tennis players, office workers to office workers, boxers to boxers, or linemen playing football (the gridiron variaty) to linemen playing football.   The gender differences would remain about the same, or even be greater than what I outlined.  Though the extent that they are greater in some sectors is probably cultural/social rather than genetic. 

After here your math just gets wierd.   First you make an assumption of 10 STR as average male strength, then having made that assumption you immediately invalidate it by making a different assumption about male average strength.   You also can't seem to subtract 8 from 11 and get 3, and that even to get to the 8.5 vs. 11.5 comparison you had to make selections that involved rounding up from 8 favorably for the female and rounding down from 12 disfavorably for the male average.   Then after subtracting 8 from 11 to get 2, you then rounded mentally down again by claiming that it was mostly lifting capacity rather than raw power which was effected (which is again exactly backwards of reality because its fast muscle and not slow muscle that makes up the bulk of the difference between the two sexes) to get to 1, which you then mentally handwaved again down to 0 because a -1 penalty was trivial.  

There is a comedy reutine in there somewhere.

You had to jump through a lot of hoops to get roughly a -4 strength modifier down to -1 or maybe zero.  Cognitive dissonance much?

I would just like to point out that not even halflings (weighing 30 lbs) are assumed be be only 2/3rds of the strength of human (males) which is itself terribly unrealistic, but there it is.  That's the reality.  If you don't like that reality to the extent that because you have a little fantasy world where everyone is valued according to how much they can bench press and how hard they can throw a punch, you have to make women in that fantasy world equally strong as men then fine.  But don't mistake that for comfort with the feminine, and claim that somehow if the world doesn't indulge this fantasy (which apparently extends into how you must view the real world) then those not so indulging are morally deficient, sexist, stuck in the past, or whatever.


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## Winterthorn (May 5, 2011)

Oryan77 said:


> What if I played a hermaphrodite? Do I get the best of both worlds, or the worst?




It is for this, as well as other considerations, that I would offer players gender differentiation as an *option*, sort of as follows (for D&D/PF/d20):

Male PCs can choose to augment their STR by 1 or 2, but must then lower their DEX by 1 or 2.  Female PCs can choose to augment their CON or DEX by 1 or 2, but must then lower their STR by 1 or 2.

-> thus limited to physical stats only, ensured there are is a trade-off, and that no player is forced to use the house rule.

I've thought of this many times, and I realized gender differentiation works best as an option of interest to players who like the concept.


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## ExploderWizard (May 5, 2011)

Gryph said:


> I didn't realize you were trying to ask a question.
> 
> I think JustKim answered that quite well earlier in the thread. Differing advantages will still make one gender an optimal choice over the other for some character concept. Why impose that on the players? How does making your gender the less optimal choice for a character you want to play make the game more fun than not having such a system?




As a personal preference I don't play with rules fiddly enough to make such mechanical distinctions. 


I do however, think this sentiment has merit. I am unable to XP Celebrim at this time, can someone cover me? 



Celebrim said:


> Maybe so, but by and large those real roles didn't include 'front line martial combatant'. The game itself is skewed however to valuing martial combat and prowess. That's why the game 'revolves around men'. For the most part, war and battle are 'a man's world' with women as intruders, and to the extent that you make the game about war and battle you are making it revolve around "masculine virtue". You don't make the world revolve around men by having stat differences. You make the world revolve around men by making prowess in melee combat the standard by which people are judged to have worth. Because if that is your standard, then it doesn't matter whether you have stat differences, you are saying essentially the only thing that matters is that one thing that men uniquely excel at and the only way for a women to be valuable is for her to pretend to be a man in female form.


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## Umbran (May 5, 2011)

Gryph said:


> Why impose that on the players?




For the typical game, I don't see much point, myself.  The only solid reason that pops immediately to mind is a desire to explore gender-roles as a theme for the campaign.  That's probably not a common desire, so not a good reason to ensconce such mechanics in the core rules of a game.


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## GreatLemur (May 5, 2011)

Some people believe that, the longer the post they make in defense of their position--and the more specific points they address in others' posts--the more knowledgeable and correct they seem.

Personally, I think these people just come off as insane.


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## Gryph (May 5, 2011)

Umbran said:


> For the typical game, I don't see much point, myself. The only solid reason that pops immediately to mind is a desire to explore gender-roles as a theme for the campaign. That's probably not a common desire, so not a good reason to ensconce such mechanics in the core rules of a game.




As an edge case, maybe. I think you might still have an argument against needing a mechanical differentiation to explore that theme. Actually, putting the mechanic in could well limit your ability to take the gender roles theme in the direction of fighting against unfair stereotypes of gender-roles ( I wonder why I think gamers might have unfair stereotypes of gender differences?). If there is a codified mechanical difference in gender how can roles that reflect that difference be unfair?

There is a world of difference between men being stronger than women and no woman being strong enough to be a physically imposing warrior.

There is also a design space in this discussion that hasn't been touched. The rules for PCs and NPCs dont have to be the same. If a gamemaster wants to reflect the average strength for women being lower than for men among the general NPC population of his campaign without that being reflected in rules for PC creation; I doubt any players would have a problem with it, if they even noticed.


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## JRRNeiklot (May 5, 2011)

JustKim said:


> It's different because I don't have any choice whether or not to be a woman in real life. If I want to play a character I can relate to, I'm going to want to play a female character. If playing a female character has game mechanics attached, and those game mechanics discourage some choices, then I myself am discouraged from playing those roles unless I step out of my comfort zone and play a male character.
> 
> If I'm a young girl just getting into D&D and want to play who I'd like to be in a fantasy world, I'm being told that even a fantasy world is not enough to put me on equal terms with boys.
> If I'm just having lighthearted fun with my friends and we play D&D with these rules, I'm having stereotypes thrown in my face. Please let that sink in: my heroic fantasy character can fail solely on the basis that she is a woman.
> ...




What about age?  That seems to be accepted.  That hasn't changed over the years, pcs still get a penalty for playing a middle aged character.   If I play an inferior older warrior, it's always going to be lauded over me that I'm not quite as good as a younger  warrior. Any time I miss an attack by 1 point, it will be because my character middle aged.  I don't have any choice but to be middle aged in real life.


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## Barastrondo (May 5, 2011)

ExploderWizard said:


> So you know for a fact that no one with genetic dwarfism has ever played D&D? I think that someone the size of a halfling could identify with one almost as well as female player to a female PC.




Generally speaking, I'd say most players aren't halflings, and generally speaking, I would personally assume that someone with genetic dwarfism would probably self-identify as "human" regardless of whether or not they find roleplaying a halfling to be an attractive choice.



> In a magical fantasy world, not even physical attributes are permenant. Depending on the campaign world it may be easier to raise attributes than bring about drastic social change.




Oh, I'd almost expect if, for instance, the GM is more emotionally invested in his idea that only men can be Zhedai monks than he is in the idea that players can change things. Not much point in trying to effect social change there.

The trouble I generally see with a desire to "celebrate the difference" between the sexes, as implemented in games, is that it's slipshod and it doesn't account for exceptions. People want simple rules. But celebrating real differences between sexes requires acknowledging that the differences are not only myriad, but also so complicated that you just can't sum them up with a rule modifier that's simple enough to be gameable. The best way to actually note the differences is, I think, to write well-realized characters who feel more like actual people than an expression of the author's opinions or beliefs (or prejudices). It's damn hard, but it's a lot more convincing argument that the author understands and wants to celebrate gender differences than a stat modifier or an exclusive class.


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## Umbran (May 5, 2011)

GreatLemur said:


> Some people believe that, the longer the post they make in defense of their position--and the more specific points they address in others' posts--the more knowledgeable and correct they seem.
> 
> Personally, I think these people just come off as insane.





And some people believe that it is okay to extrapolate from things said in a post to the personality of the poster.  Some even believe that it is okay to say such things only in suggestion - that it is allowable so long as they don't name names.

Believe what you like, it isn't appropriate for these forums.

There's no call to address the personality behind the post - speak to the content, or just leave it be, please and thank you.


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## Gryph (May 5, 2011)

JRRNeiklot said:


> What about age? That seems to be accepted. That hasn't changed over the years, pcs still get a penalty for playing a middle aged character. If I play an inferior older warrior, it's always going to be lauded over me that I'm not quite as good as a younger warrior. Any time I miss an attack by 1 point, it will be because my character middle aged. I don't have any choice but to be middle aged in real life.





A valid point. I think game design is moving away from those sorts of adjustments as well. Certainly D&D abandoned them and TSR AD&D had them in spades.


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## Crothian (May 5, 2011)

ThirdWizard said:


> For anyone advocating different rules, think about this: Any implementation of this is basically giving people different rules (be they bonuses, penalties, alternate feats, traits, etc) based on their _real life_ sex, because people want to play the same sex in game that they are in real life most of the time. Is this really a thing that you want? Roleplaying is already male dominated, do you want to tell an interested female "Oh and here are the rules _you_ have to follow."




If people play the a character that is the same gender they are then that is their choice.  It is not making rules to punish them for their gender because they have a choice.  Also, rules for gender are no different then the rules for a race or a class.  Everyone will have different rules that apply to them because of their choices.  Everyone is being treated the same here no matter what choice they make for their character.


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## Umbran (May 5, 2011)

Gryph said:


> As an edge case, maybe. I think you might still have an argument against needing a mechanical differentiation to explore that theme.




I don't see where "need" enters the discussion.  Do we "need" the difference to explore the theme?  No, but then the theme could be explored with plain cooperative storytelling, with no "need" for any game rules whatsoever.  So, "need" isn't relevant.  The question is whether they can be a powerful enough tool that they make things better rather than worse.



> Actually, putting the mechanic in could well limit your ability to take the gender roles theme in the direction of fighting against unfair stereotypes of gender-roles ( I wonder why I think gamers might have unfair stereotypes of gender differences?). If there is a codified mechanical difference in gender how can roles that reflect that difference be unfair?




Depends how crafty you want to be about it.

The best examples that comes to mind are several short stories set in Larry Niven's "Known Space" universe, where one species (the Kzinti), have selectively bred their species to the point of significant sexual dimorphism - their females are only on the bare edge of sentience, and their males are terribly aggressive - they make Klingons look gentle and passive.

"The Heroic Myth of Lieutenant Nora Argamentine," for example, is a very powerful tale, and it couldn't be told if that race didn't have the drastic differences in their genders.  Several other tales play with the theme, as well, again hinging on that dimorphism.


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## Jon_Dahl (May 5, 2011)

I note that people have the impression that bonuses and penalties due to gender would somehow degrade women. Not necessarily. For instance *IF* I'd give bonuses and penalties for genders, I'd like to give +2 Strength for men and +2 Wisdom (or something similar) for women. These would just reflect the two classical examples: Men are stronger, but women have instinct (pleeeease don't execute me for saying that, please!).

Now men would be better with things relating to pure strength, and women would have all the wisdom... which in D&D would mean that women would rule the clergies and men would do all the hard work. And Druid is still the strongest Core Class at lower levels IMO.

That doesn't sound something that would automatically drive female players out, but if you're telling me that then really I won't argue. I just won't!


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## Dracorat (May 5, 2011)

Even though D&D has been affected by the Politically Correct bandwagon and now focuses on plusses instead of penalties... (Not that I really disagree with this - I'm all for optimism...)

... when you have to make one choice over another that has a mechanical resolution, you still have an effective "penalty" in the choice made. You _could_ have had the bonus of one, but now do not.

While I'm not opposed to such decisions, I do believe that each should have merit. In this case, I cannot abide that merit exists. While there are differences in genders as surely as there are differences in ethnicity, racial background, religious belief, etc, I cannot believe that such differences warrant a change of stat in any direction.

Furthermore, a difference in stat is a judgment call that _at best_ shows inherent bias in the opinion of the adjustments author. For a character who is supposed to be at minimum, destined for greatness, such an adjustment is unnecessary and unwarranted.

Of course, you can sum all this up as my opinion, but I feel strongly about it.

And sure, I can admit there may be exceptions. A race based on spiders comes to mind. But the exceptions should be just that - exceptions - not the rule.


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## Crothian (May 5, 2011)

Dracorat said:


> ... when you have to make one choice over another that has a mechanical resolution, you still have an effective "penalty" in the choice made. You _could_ have had the bonus of one, but now do not..




At this point then I think each player has to decide are they going to play the character they want or do they just want to have the best numbers on a sheet of paper and don't care what options get them there.  It is more about play style then anything.  Removing gender from it I've seen people play a halfling with a minus to strength melee fighter.  Sure, it is not the optimum choice but it is what they want to play.  They could stick with that or remake the character with a race that has a bonus to strength.  RPGs a lot of time are about choices and one cannot always have everything they want.


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## Gryph (May 5, 2011)

Umbran said:


> I don't see where "need" enters the discussion. Do we "need" the difference to explore the theme? No, but then the theme could be explored with plain cooperative storytelling, with no "need" for any game rules whatsoever. So, "need" isn't relevant. The question is whether they can be a powerful enough tool that they make things better rather than worse.




 Point taken. "Need" is too strong a word for the point I was trying to make. "Would having the mechancial differences strengthen the theme?" is closer to what I was trying to convey. I just feel that such mechanics if we are dealing with human or near-human characters would end up being, at best, tangential to a gender-role theme in a game. On the other hand my stylistic preference is toward less fiddly bits in character creation rather than more and that preference certainly informs my posts in this thread. 



Umbran said:


> Depends how crafty you want to be about it.
> 
> The best examples that comes to mind are several short stories set in Larry Niven's "Known Space" universe, where one species (the Kzinti), have selectively bred their species to the point of significant sexual dimorphism - their females are only on the bare edge of sentience, and their males are terribly aggressive - they make Klingons look gentle and passive.
> 
> "The Heroic Myth of Lieutenant Nora Argamentine," for example, is a very powerful tale, and it couldn't be told if that race didn't have the drastic differences in their genders. Several other tales play with the theme, as well, again hinging on that dimorphism.




If we are going to play with truly alien races rather than humans in costume, than I agree there could be some very interesting explorations of strong dimorphism. I don't think I'm a good enough gm to pull this off well; but I can imagine a better writer/designer than I doing some cool things here.

Thanks for reminding me of Niven's Kzinti stories. It's been years since I read them and I greatly enjoyed them at the time. Kzinti were my race of choice when I was playing SFB back in college.


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## billd91 (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> At this point then I think each player has to decide are they going to play the character they want or do they just want to have the best numbers on a sheet of paper and don't care what options get them there.  It is more about play style then anything.  Removing gender from it I've seen people play a halfling with a minus to strength melee fighter.  Sure, it is not the optimum choice but it is what they want to play.  They could stick with that or remake the character with a race that has a bonus to strength.  RPGs a lot of time are about choices and one cannot always have everything they want.




The difference is there's nobody, but nobody, playing this game who *is* a halfling. There are plenty of women who play RPGs. If a game included gender-based rules that made the sex most of them probably identify with as a PC inferior, I would expect them to drift toward a game that didn't include those rules. And I would expect a game publisher to realize that and not be quite so stupid as to risk alienating that many people.

As I've said before, I don't mind if there are options in the game that include some gender differentiation, Traveller's Aslan being an excellent example. But it's one of many options, not even including the primary option - playing the type of PC easiest for a player to ID with - human, an option without a bit of gender-based difference (as far as I can recall).


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## Dracorat (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> At this point then I think each player has to decide are they going to play the character they want or do they just want to have the best numbers on a sheet of paper and don't care what options get them there.  It is more about play style then anything.  Removing gender from it I've seen people play a halfling with a minus to strength melee fighter.  Sure, it is not the optimum choice but it is what they want to play.  They could stick with that or remake the character with a race that has a bonus to strength.  RPGs a lot of time are about choices and one cannot always have everything they want.




That's what ends up happening. But does that mean it's justified to force them to even have to weigh "I want to" versus "but I get". I don't think it is. Races add flavor and even then, I'd be tempted to question the bonuses given by them.

I advocate less "mechanical" choices and more flavor choices. You should play an Elf because you _want_ to, not because they make your archery better...


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## Crothian (May 5, 2011)

billd91 said:


> The difference is there's nobody, but nobody, playing this game who *is* a halfling. There are plenty of women who play RPGs. If a game included gender-based rules that made the sex most of them probably identify with as a PC inferior, I would expect them to drift toward a game that didn't include those rules. And I would expect a game publisher to realize that and not be quite so stupid as to risk alienating that many people.




Why are you assuming that the mechanics would make the gender inferior?  No one I think is saying that gender mechanics would be there because one gender is better then the other.  It would be like racial mechanics different but equal.  So, if we did give a gender +2 wisdom then that's not going to alienate everyone that wants to play that gender or everyone that doesn't.  It might alienate the small sub section that wants to play a low wisdom version of that gender or who because they are optimizing wants a different bonus for the character they are playing.


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## Gryph (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> At this point then I think each player has to decide are they going to play the character they want or do they just want to have the best numbers on a sheet of paper and don't care what options get them there. It is more about play style then anything. Removing gender from it I've seen people play a halfling with a minus to strength melee fighter. Sure, it is not the optimum choice but it is what they want to play. They could stick with that or remake the character with a race that has a bonus to strength. RPGs a lot of time are about choices and one cannot always have everything they want.





I'm going to state this from a male bias but I think it applies equally, if slightly differently, from the female perspective.

We're playing D&D4e and my DM has decided to add some houserules about gender. Males get + 1 to Strength and Females get a +1 to Dexterity. Ability Scores are purchased by point buy. 

My character concept is a guttersnipe thief who's one advantage in life is his almost supernatural grace and dexterity. I am happy to spend a big chunk of my ability scores points to buy the highest dex I can. I'm more than happy to suffer a weak Fort defense because I can't afford an 18 dex and a high score in str or con. Now because of that houserule it is not possible for me to have the highest dex score humanly possible because I am uncomfortable, as a male, playing female characters.

There is no, immediate, mechanical advantage for me to have a 19 over an 18 dex. So my frustration with the rule is that it is *impossible *for me to play a human male thief who is the pinnacle of dexterity.


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## Crothian (May 5, 2011)

Gryph said:


> There is no, immediate, mechanical advantage for me to have a 19 over an 18 dex. So my frustration with the rule is that it is *impossible *for me to play a human male thief who is the pinnacle of dexterity.




But by those rules an 18 is the pinnacle for human males at first level.

Even if you got the +1 it would be like complaining that an elf can start with a 20 so therefore you still are not the best.  But the elf looks at the 8th level rogue and notices he has a 24 so the elf is complaining.  And this could go on and one as there can always be someone out there with a higher dex and no character can really ever be the true "pinnacle of dexterity".


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## ThirdWizard (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> Why are you assuming that the mechanics would make the gender inferior?




At certain things, it would.


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## Dracorat (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> But by those rules an 18 is the pinnacle for human males at first level.
> 
> Even if you got the +1 it would be like complaining that an elf can start with a 20 so therefore you still are not the best.  But the elf looks at the 8th level rogue and notices he has a 24 so the elf is complaining.  And this could go on and one as there can always be someone out there with a higher dex and no character can really ever be the true "pinnacle of dexterity".




Your dexterity is awesome... for a _HU-MAN_.


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## Gryph (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> But by those rules an 18 is the pinnacle for human males at first level.
> 
> Even if you got the +1 it would be like complaining that an elf can start with a 20 so therefore you still are not the best. But the elf looks at the 8th level rogue and notices he has a 24 so the elf is complaining. And this could go on and one as there can always be someone out there with a higher dex and no character can really ever be the true "pinnacle of dexterity".




But I want to be the pinnacle for homo sapiens, not the inferior hu-man. If my goal was to have the best dex possible I would have chosen elf. 

I didn't ever say my concept was to have the highest dex possible in the game. I simply don't want to be lower than any other PC who is my level and human. I am willing to forego all kinds of other options to achieve that, but it is dickish behavior to tell me to suck it up and play a girl to get there. Just as it is dickish behavior to tell a person of feminine orientation ) I loved your post Dracorat) to suck it up and play a boy if they want to be the strongest possible character.


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## Crothian (May 5, 2011)

Gryph said:


> But I want to be the pinnacle for homo sapiens, not the inferior hu-man. If my goal was to have the best dex possible I would have chosen elf.




If the concept is the best dex human and female humans get a bonus to dex then the concept seems to support being a female human.  But you want a male so therefore you limit yourself by the concept.  Taking a gender with a lower dex is no different then taking a race with a lower dex which it seems you are willing to do.  You either take the best for mechanical reasons or you stick with the original character concepts.  No one is forcing you to do anything.


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## Gryph (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> If the concept is the best dex human and female humans get a bonus to dex then the concept seems to support being a female human. But you want a male so therefore you limit yourself by the concept. Taking a gender with a lower dex is no different then taking a race with a lower dex which it seems you are willing to do. You either take the best for mechanical reasons or you stick with the original character concepts. No one is forcing you to do anything.





Your "rule" here is an artificial construct and flawed. Choice of gender and choice of race are clearly not equivalent to a lot of people who have posted in this thread, myself included. Strong character identification is part of the appeal of RPGs and it is much easier for someone to strongly identify with a character of their own gender. The only thing such a rule does in limit the universe of available character concepts, frustrating some portion of the potential player base. So why have them?

All of your posts about free choice and non-coercion are true as far as they go, but not relevant to that question.


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## billd91 (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> Why are you assuming that the mechanics would make the gender inferior?  No one I think is saying that gender mechanics would be there because one gender is better then the other.  It would be like racial mechanics different but equal.  So, if we did give a gender +2 wisdom then that's not going to alienate everyone that wants to play that gender or everyone that doesn't.  It might alienate the small sub section that wants to play a low wisdom version of that gender or who because they are optimizing wants a different bonus for the character they are playing.




It wouldn't matter if it were a penalty or a bonus. In either event, one gender is defined to be inferior to the other in that particular way because, given the exact same input, one is necessarily better than the other. 

Mechanically, it may look no different from the difference between PC races, but I assure you it's a far more loaded issue than that. As I've said, it's less of an issue if halflings are weaker than humans because there are no halflings to get pissed off by that difference. Start imposing strength penalties on females and you start pissing off the women who want to play as much of an ass kicking barbarian as the men they play with.


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## Crothian (May 5, 2011)

Gryph said:


> Your "rule" here is an artificial construct and flawed. Choice of gender and choice of race are clearly not equivalent to a lot of people who have posted in this thread, myself included. Strong character identification is part of the appeal of RPGs and it is much easier for someone to strongly identify with a character of their own gender.




For some people this will hold true for others it will not.  I'd say the same can be true for race though.  Some gamers feel more comfortable playing humans then non humans.  But this is not used as a reason as why other races should not have mechanically superiority to humans that I've seen.  



> The only thing such a rule does in limit the universe of available character concepts, frustrating some portion of the potential player base. So why have them?




All rules limit concepts.  The rule that humans are medium sizes eliminates my concept of playing a giant or small human for instance.  Game choices, campaign choices, group dynamic choices all limit concepts.   It also seems the only concepts this is limiting is concepts that are the very best at something in a certain way.  One can be the best fighter without the highest strength for instance.  So, the concepts being limited are the min maxed concepts of players that want the highest of something and think they can't get it because of choices they have made.  

I'm not advocating adding in these rules to every game.  But I can imagine a game that they would be appropriate.  I can imagine races that have genders different enough to warrant mechanical differences.

I wonder if the arguments against this are because of the human aspect.  So, for humans both genders are mechanically the same.  But for elves we make the genders mechanically different.  And we do the same for the Xogaths, the three gender race I just now created.


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## Gryph (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> For some people this will hold true for others it will not. I'd say the same can be true for race though. Some gamers feel more comfortable playing humans then non humans. But this is not used as a reason as why other races should not have mechanically superiority to humans that I've seen.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Since medium covers Dwarves to Goliaths in D&D, I have trouble seeing the relevance of that as a limitation for a human concept.

No one is disputing that some rules limit choices. Other rules enable choices. It requires a rule to add a race or a class or set of skills to a game. All of these rules expand choice. 

You seem to be very focused on the min/maxing aspect of character choice, I'm not sure why that is. It feels like a support of encoding gender bias in a rule set and I don't really think that's what your trying to do.

I already agreed with you and Umbran both earlier in the thread that if we are in a design space that encompasses a not recognizably human form of dimorphism (such as a tri-gendered species) that there maybe very good reasons for mechanical differences in the genders. At that point we aren't really talking about male and female anymore though, are we?

And yes my argument (if I wasn't entirely clear) is in the context of playing a human.


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## Celebrim (May 5, 2011)

Gryph said:


> Your "rule" here is an artificial construct and flawed.




Why 'flawed'?  Even more so, why 'artificial'?

You have a highly subjective opinion and you are looking at a different subjective opinion and trying to claim not just that your opinion is better, but that the particular way it is better is that your fantasy is more real?  I don't buy that at all.



> Choice of gender and choice of race are clearly not equivalent to a lot of people who have posted in this thread, myself included.




Ok, I understand that.  But you haven't established that this discomfort with gender dimorphism is based on anything objective, only that you have this 'feeling'.  



> Strong character identification is part of the appeal of RPGs and it is much easier for someone to strongly identify with a character of their own gender.




In your opinion.  I don't accept that as objective fact.



> The only thing such a rule does in limit the universe of available character concepts




I don't agree.  Your own example of wanting to play "the most dexterous possible" human would prevent you from playing a male character strikes me as very weak.   You are comfortable you say with the idea that an elf will be more dexterous than you, but not comfortable with the idea that a human female would be more dexterous than you.  Why?  I don't see how those two are objectively different.  What's worse about, "You're very dexterous for a boy?" compared to "You're very dexterous for an elf?"

Have we gone from, "You can't have templates for females because that's degrading to women!", to "You can't have templates for females because then some girl (character) might be better than this character I strongly self-identify with!"?


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## El Mahdi (May 5, 2011)

For what it's worth, here's my opinion. For frame of reference, I'm coming at this from a 3/3.5E standpoint. There are some differences between 3E and 4E, and I'll point them out where they are significant, but for the most part Strength scores are comparable between editions. So...



I don't think that mechanical representations of gender differences are necessary, but if a group wants that, it's not that difficult to do without overly penalizing anyone. But, if one is going to impose "realism" because of Gender, one should also impose realism as far as reasonable Strength limitations and minimum body weights.

I did a quick and dirty (somewhat scientific) comparison of Human Male and Female Strengths based on body weight, and in reference to current Olympic Weightlifting World Records (Clean & Jerk). Unfortunately, the IOC doesn't keep track of such records for other character races.

This is the results:

Maximum real world Strength in D&D terms is: Males = 23, Females = 21

Amazingly, D&D agrees with the real-world here, as Maximum Human Strength Score in D&D is 23 (20th level, from the character advancement charts for both 3E and 4E). If you count Epic (above 20th level for both 3E and 4E) that can go as high as 26. That's significantly greater than the real-world, but since we're talking about mythical Hercules and such, it still works for me.

Real-world, I'm making the assumption that both Men and Woman have essentially the same physical potential as far as Dexterity goes. I'm making this assumption based upon a definition of Dexterity as only the efficiency of a persons mind-muscle neural connections and "Fast-twitch" muscle response. Granted, Men have an increased running speed potential than woman - but running speed in the real-world is as much an element of "strength" and cardio-vascular/pulmonary capacity as it is "quickness" (unlike D&D which mostly bases it on Dexterity only).

Also real-world: though there are differences between male and female brains as far as how we process, view the world, etc. - I don't believe there is a quantifiable mechanical difference between men and women as concerns Intelligence and Wisdom. So, I'm assuming men and women are equal in this regards also.

Constitution is a very general Ability (but then again, so are all the others) that combines many things into physical toughness, such as: ability to resist disease (bacteria, viruses, environmental damage, etc.), ability to resist poison, a quantification of structural/physical toughness, etc. If you look at each thing that makes up Constitution, there may be some that Men are more resitant to than Woman, but I think that the opposite may be true for others. Then if you break it down into different specific things (different viruses, diseases, etc.), you'll find differences there also. So in the end, I believe it's a wash.

Charisma combines too many things (personality, charm, attractiveness, etc.), that are all so subjective from the point of any individual viewer, that there's no way to say Men or Woman are "objectively" more or less Charismatic in comparison. There's no doubt that Men and Woman are different in how they project and utilize Charisma, but I don't think it's possible to nail down an objectively quantifiable difference. So, I'll call this one a wash also.

So, IMO the only thing that seems to present a clear and objective difference both mechanically and quantifiably, is Strength.

But for balance purposes, if one is instituting a penalty, one should also probably institute an offsetting bonus. So, with the above in mind, here's my Human Gender Adjustment Houserule(s):

*Human Male: Race as written.*
*Human Female: -2 Strength, +2 Dexterity*

*or* 

*Maximum Strength at 20th level *(without magical or other enhancement)*:** Male = 23, Female = 21*
*Maximum Dexterity at 20th level *(without magical or other enhancement)*:** Male and Female = 23*



Strength Score / Male Minimum Weight / Female Minimum Weight
18 / 100+ lbs. / 100+ lbs.
19 / 110+ lbs. / 125+ lbs.
20 / 120+ lbs. / 160+ lbs.
21 / 135+ lbs. / 200+ lbs.
22 / 160+ lbs.
23 / 210+ lbs. 

Also, height should be set accordingly.  It's highly unlikely that a 120 lb., 6' tall Man is going to have a 20 Strength (5' would be more realistic). 


This allows for starting scores making Males stronger and Females more dextrous, and carries those differences throughout charcter advancement (unless a player decides not to focus on those Abilities), but still limits those abilities at real-world maximums. It also requires a realistic body weight for comparable strength. So you don't have a an average Female Human (weighing say, 150 lbs.) having a 21 Strength (like Zena).


Or, you could ignore the bonus/penalty portion, and only enforce the Maximum Strength Limits. This way, you can have female characters that can start the game just as strongly as male characters (with 18 Strength), but still adhere to real-world limits.



Also, for your enjoyment or fodder (depending on each individuals preference), attached are the charts I used to record my "scentific" research. (Source was the list of current Olympic Weightlifting World Records: Clean & Jerk, from Wikipedia here).

_Snatch_ and _Clean & Jerk_ are the most comparable to the D&D "Lift Over Head", with "Lift" being a "Dead Lift" and "Drag/Pull" being self-explanatory. I used the Clean & Jerk category as the weights lifted were universally higher than the Snatch (and we are talking about Heroes here - they're obviously going to use the method with the best results).

These charts are based on 3/3.5E (where applicable). 3/3.5E and 4E are mostly comparable for ability scores/carry capacities, just with 4E using a more simplified method of calculation (that does cause some differences at different Strength scores, though nothing significant enough to change a Strength Score compared to real-world World Records). Also, 4E doesn't differentiate a "Lift Over Head" like 3/3.5E does - so, since the basic carry and lift weights are mostly comparable, I've made the assumption that the "Lift Over Head" weights would be comparable also.

Enjoy.


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## Crothian (May 5, 2011)

Gryph said:


> Since medium covers Dwarves to Goliaths in D&D, I have trouble seeing the relevance of that as a limitation for a human concept.




Just an example, muight not be the best but for 30 seconds of thought that's what I came up with.  



> No one is disputing that some rules limit choices. Other rules enable choices. It requires a rule to add a race or a class or set of skills to a game. All of these rules expand choice.




Without rules you can do whatever you want.  But this gets into what rules do and that's a different discussion.  Do we need rules that allow us to do things or do we need rules to tell us what we are not allowed to do.  



> You seem to be very focused on the min/maxing aspect of character choice, I'm not sure why that is. It feels like a support of encoding gender bias in a rule set and I don't really think that's what your trying to do.




That is in response to the examples people keep giving me.  It all has to do about having the highest possible strength or the highest possible dexterity or whatever.  



> I already agreed with you and Umbran both earlier in the thread that if we are in a design space that encompasses a not recognizably human form of dimorphism (such as a tri-gendered species) that there maybe very good reasons for mechanical differences in the genders. At that point we aren't really talking about male and female anymore though, are we?
> 
> And yes my argument (if I wasn't entirely clear) is in the context of playing a human.




This is just trying to see where the line is.  Is it all gender based mechanics are bad?  Is it all gender based mechanics with just 2 genders is bad?  Or is it gender mechanics applied just to humans is bad?  Different people will have different places where they see the line so I was just opening up discussion along those lines with everyone.  

To further that discussion since you clearly state it is with humans that your issue lies what if a fantasy gamed had humans but clearly defined withing the context of the game that the genders were not equal.  It is a fantasy game so the gods when they created humankind made men better at X and women better at Y.


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## Gryph (May 5, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> I don't agree. Your own example of wanting to play "the most dexterous possible" human would prevent you from playing a male character strikes me as very weak. You are comfortable you say with the idea that an elf will be more dexterous than you, but not comfortable with the idea that a human female would be more dexterous than you. Why? I don't see how those two are objectively different. What's worse about, "You're very dexterous for a boy?" compared to "You're very dexterous for an elf?"
> 
> Have we gone from, "You can't have templates for females because that's degrading to women!", to "You can't have templates for females because then some girl (character) might be better than this character I strongly self-identify with!"?





I play RPGs for fun. Fun is an inherently subjective concept. I freely admit all of my arguments about what I consider fun and unfun in RPGs are subjective. I also call mea culpa to believing my opinions are better than Crothian's in this thread. You got me. 

My example was meant as a thought exercise to demonstrate a male viewpoint version of a conversation I had with a good friend of mine I gamed with for years. She had been an army MP for 14 years and police officer and DEA agent in the civilian world. It frustrated her that game rules attempted for reasons of "realism" to limit her ability to play a very strong female warrior. Not "strong for a girl", but strong for a warrior.

I clearly failed. I also hate playing rogues.


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## Crothian (May 5, 2011)

Gryph said:


> I play RPGs for fun. Fun is an inherently subjective concept. I freely admit all of my arguments about what I consider fun and unfun in RPGs are subjective. I also call mea culpa to believing my opinions are better than Crothian's in this thread. You got me.




No one's opinion is better then anyone else, but I don't think that is an issue in this discussion.  Neither of us that I've noticed has positioned their argument in a way to make me feel like it was the right one.  I like learning and exploring the reasons and issues with someone who disagrees with me; I feel I learn something by understandign an opposing or different view.  So, I thank you for that.  



> My example was meant as a thought exercise to demonstrate a male viewpoint version of a conversation I had with a good friend of mine I gamed with for years. She had been an army MP for 14 years and police officer and DEA agent in the civilian world. It frustrated her that game rules attempted for reasons of "realism" to limit her ability to play a very strong female warrior. Not "strong for a girl", but strong for a warrior.




I have run into that same issue except with a petite history major who's character concept was and I quote "Like Conan but with boobs."


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## Gryph (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> Just an example, muight not be the best but for 30 seconds of thought that's what I came up with.




I've misfired myself often enough .



Crothian said:


> Without rules you can do whatever you want. But this gets into what rules do and that's a different discussion. Do we need rules that allow us to do things or do we need rules to tell us what we are not allowed to do.




See, I misfired right here.



Crothian said:


> That is in response to the examples people keep giving me. It all has to do about having the highest possible strength or the highest possible dexterity or whatever.




Ok, that explains it. I think you and I are talking about an only partially overlapping area of the meta-game. Where you see "I want the best score possible", I am remembering gamer friends saying "Why can't I be as strong as the guys". I have never had an answer to that I was comfortable giving to my friend Natty. She can totally kick my ass. 



Crothian said:


> This is just trying to see where the line is. Is it all gender based mechanics are bad? Is it all gender based mechanics with just 2 genders is bad? Or is it gender mechanics applied just to humans is bad? Different people will have different places where they see the line so I was just opening up discussion along those lines with everyone.
> 
> To further that discussion since you clearly state it is with humans that your issue lies what if a fantasy gamed had humans but clearly defined withing the context of the game that the genders were not equal. It is a fantasy game so the gods when they created humankind made men better at X and women better at Y.




I'm not sure I want to try and put a good/bad value judgement on gender mechanics. I also, in the context of a fantasy game or superheroic game or superheroic fantasy game, don't want to say to my daughter "your fighter can't be as strong as your brother's fighter cause she's a girl. The world is a hard place, suck it up." I don't want to tell that to my friends, either. And since they have been removed from most games released in the last decade I don't think commercial game publishers want to tell that to over half of the potential purchasing public.

And whether you believe that they are "realistic" or not; is the added sense of realism contributing more to a game then the limiting options is removing in terms of player and gm enjoyment? 

The answer to that is clearly a personal one for everyone. I think I've been clear in this thread that my answers are subjective and thereby purely opinion. Where I have expressed disapproval for gender mechanics it has been in an attempt to illustrate a viewpoint that has been expressed to me by several female gamers. 

I game mostly with a group of middle-aged, married couples and some of our kids. We've known and gamed with each other for over 20 years. In our group, a scenario where the gods made men and women substantially different would play like an attempt to codify in game the worst of historical patriarchal gender roles. I'm not sure I would escape the game session alive if I proposed them.


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## JRRNeiklot (May 5, 2011)

I think it's being blown out of proportion.  In a system with randomly generated stats, it's quite possible for Joe the fighter to have a 14 strength while Jill the fighter with a minus two to her roll has a 16 strength.   To me, it's just not a big deal.


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## El Mahdi (May 5, 2011)

JRRNeiklot said:


> I think it's being blown out of proportion. In a system with randomly generated stats, it's quite possible for Joe the fighter to have a 14 strength while Jill the fighter with a minus two to her roll has a 16 strength. To me, it's just not a big deal.




I agree, I just find it unrealistic to have a female character with a 23 Strength (without magic or divine intercession).  Or to have a 5'6", 120 pound female (or male) have a 21 Strength.


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## pawsplay (May 5, 2011)

Crothian said:


> I have run into that same issue except with a petite history major who's character concept was and I quote "Like Conan but with boobs."




I had coffee with her once. She was a database engineer. She knew what was good in life. Her girlfriend was a voluptuous, whip-wielding princess. Professionally.


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## Crothian (May 5, 2011)

Gryph said:


> Ok, that explains it. I think you and I are talking about an only partially overlapping area of the meta-game. Where you see "I want the best score possible", I am remembering gamer friends saying "Why can't I be as strong as the guys". I have never had an answer to that I was comfortable giving to my friend Natty. She can totally kick my ass.




Most of the people I game with can kick my ass but I never let that get in the way.  To how I'd explain it is just saying that's what the rules say.  However, like anything we come across rules wise that gets in the way of fun I'd toss it and allow their character be an exception.  Or if I was displeased with them I'd tell them tough and suck it up.  Like yourself though I game with friends I've known for a long time so I know I can get away with that.  



> I don't want to say to my daughter "your fighter can't be as strong as your brother's fighter cause she's a girl. The world is a hard place, suck it up." I don't want to tell that to my friends, either.




Agreed, there are different things I do when gaming with kids then I do gaming with adults.  Be the kids mine, mine friends, or strangers like at conventions.  



> And since they have been removed from most games released in the last decade I don't think commercial game publishers want to tell that to over half of the potential purchasing public.




With the hobby being so small and some indy games selling to such a small market I wonder if they could do this and be successful.  I'm not a publisher though so there are things I would do with a game that are not wise in a business sense because I'm ignorant of the business side.  Alienating potential customers or being able to market a game to a certain subset would fall into that.  



> And whether you believe that they are "realistic" or not; is the added sense of realism contributing more to a game then the limiting options is removing in terms of player and gm enjoyment?




I'm purposely avoiding using realistic.  Or not realistic with the real world, but realistic for the setting.  That's probably not the right word but as long as it makes sense for the setting I'm fine with it.  If the setting needs humans to fly, then I'd let them fly no matter how unrealistic that is.  That's why its fantasy.  



> I game mostly with a group of middle-aged, married couples and some of our kids. We've known and gamed with each other for over 20 years. In our group, a scenario where the gods made men and women substantially different would play like an attempt to codify in game the worst of historical patriarchal gender roles. I'm not sure I would escape the game session alive if I proposed them.




It could be constructed to not have any patriarchal gender roles. Unless you are just saying there is no in game reason that you could see that would allow for unequal gender mechanics at your table.


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## pawsplay (May 5, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Both.  I mean that the comparison would hold true whether we were comparing women who engage in an atheletic activity at a high level with men who played the sport at a high level, or if we compared women who didn't engage in sports with men who also didn't.   Thus, it doesn't matter if we were comparing tennis players to tennis players, office workers to office workers, boxers to boxers, or linemen playing football (the gridiron variaty) to linemen playing football.   The gender differences would remain about the same, or even be greater than what I outlined.  Though the extent that they are greater in some sectors is probably cultural/social rather than genetic.




What is your reason for that belief?



> After here your math just gets wierd.   First you make an assumption of 10 STR as average male strength, then having made that assumption you immediately invalidate it by making a different assumption about male average strength.   You also can't seem to subtract 8 from 11 and get 3, and that even to get to the 8.5 vs. 11.5 comparison you had to make selections that involved rounding up from 8 favorably for the female and rounding down from 12 disfavorably for the male average.   Then after subtracting 8 from 11 to get 2, you then rounded mentally down again by claiming that it was mostly lifting capacity rather than raw power which was effected (which is again exactly backwards of reality because its fast muscle and not slow muscle that makes up the bulk of the difference between the two sexes) to get to 1, which you then mentally handwaved again down to 0 because a -1 penalty was trivial.




I incorrectly stated +2 in one place, where the difference was clearly +3. The whole point of the exercise was to determine the number of points different you need to get that percentage. The answer is 3. 11.5 - 8.5 = 3.



> You had to jump through a lot of hoops to get roughly a -4 strength modifier down to -1 or maybe zero.  Cognitive dissonance much?




You're going to have to explain that one. I said in the beginning that there would be a 3 point difference (+1 Strengh, +2 more for lifting capacity) and that is accurate.



> I would just like to point out that not even halflings (weighing 30 lbs) are assumed be be only 2/3rds of the strength of human (males) which is itself terribly unrealistic, but there it is.  That's the reality.  If you don't like that reality to the extent that because you have a little fantasy world where everyone is valued according to how much they can bench press and how hard they can throw a punch, you have to make women in that fantasy world equally strong as men then fine.  But don't mistake that for comfort with the feminine, and claim that somehow if the world doesn't indulge this fantasy (which apparently extends into how you must view the real world) then those not so indulging are morally deficient, sexist, stuck in the past, or whatever.




Wow, let of insinuations there. No, I am just using the math I was provided to prove the point I said in the first place. Now, if you want to object to my argument that males get a lifting capacity bonus rather than a relative +3 Strength bonus, you are welcome to make that argument. But you're going to have to back it up. I happen to know that female kickboxers can generate a similar amount of force as a male one, which would imply no Strength difference at all. I also don't see much evidence that men are more effective at attacking with melee weapons and dealing palpable hits; in SCA armored combat, women are overrepresented as Marshals compared to their level of participation in combat as a whole. 

+2 Strength is a pretty heavy difference, mathematically. Watch this clip:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg-_hiFKdsU]YouTube - BBQ Beatdown 6 - Claire Haights beats male opponent - MMA in Thailand[/ame]

Does that look like the equivalent of a racial difference in Strength to you? The dude is bigger, possibly even to the extent suggested before. He definitely has a more powerful chest. But is he stronger? Better at melee? Better at bull rushes?

So that is my counter-argument based on realism. Basing gender differences on Strength on weight lifting is a little like basing gender differences in Constitution based on surviving a famine. But _even in such an unfair contest_, you still only get +3 relative difference.

Now, here's my counter-argument based on fiction. Whatever differences may or may not exist in the real world, they should apply, at best, to NPCs. PCs, by definition, are neither ordinary folks, nor are they statistically representative of the general population in the slightest. Whatever differences you assign become, effectively, the price of admission. Want to be a strong female warrior? In some games, it sucks to be you. At a minimum, female characters should be provided a relatively as useful benefit.

But ideally, they should be given the option of purchasing the male equivalency. You could call it balance. You could call it fairness. I would call it simply freedom. Unless the concept is literally impossible, you are simply charging a tax on the concept. That is one of the reasons why, in the Pathfinder RPG, a human gets a +2 to the ability score of their choice, so humans aren't taxed relative to an exceptional member of each of the other races. Because a human fighter is intended to be as viable a concept as a half-orc one.

Now, a halfing fighter, or a dward bard... you expect such a character to have stark differences from the norm. It could still be annoying, but the concept itself is probably congruent with the choices you make. 

What exactly is the point of taxing female (Class_X)? Should female adventurers of that class be less common for some reason? Even to the level of possibly surpassing real-world differences?

A d20, or 3d6-based game, is a pretty blunt instrument for trying to distinguish between two sorts of beings who can reproduce together, who can work virtually all the same professions, and have overlapping levels of ability at just about everything. Even a +1 modifier on a d20 is 5% of the base value, and on 3d6, it ranges from more than 10% and downwards.


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## Celebrim (May 6, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> What is your reason for that belief?




Lots of things.  The table of world record clean and jerks by weight and gender would be one of many objective examples.

I'll give you an ancedotal one though that was more impactful to me.  When I was in high school, we had the best girls basketball team in the state.  The boys basketball team... well not so much.  People used to joke about how the our girls could probably beat our boys.  One day at gym late in the sesmester after the girls had one the state championship, the gym teacher had the girls team play the boys that were in the gym.  Mind you, not the boys team, the boys just in the gym class - many of us being far from atheletic and would rather been in study hall playing D&D.  Within only a few seconds it was clear it wasn't a remotely fair match.  By the end of it, it was clear that however much atheletic prowess and ball skill they had, they did't have remotely enough hand speed, foot speed, or height to compensate against guys who wouldn't have been picked first string in a pickup game.  It was kinda embarassing, and the gym teacher called it off.

Basically, you are doing the Billie Jean King comparison.  The idea here is that if you can find one female who excels a man in some atheletic competition, then it proves the physical equality of the sexes.  This is a false test on any number of grounds not the least of which is that gender equality is not based on the idea of physical equality.  But of course, such fights are rigged.  The best women's tennis player in the world is better than 99.9% of all male tennis players, but probably not rank in the top 500 players in the world in mixed competition.

(BTW, the same is not true of say running a Marathon or some other sport where strength and consequently sprint speed are less important.  Move out a bit farther to ultra-marathons that depend on having very high percentages of slow muscle to high muscle, and women actually can often out compete men.)  

It's well known that the reason you don't see say the Serena sisters doing exhibition matches against men is that it would be just as embarassing as the pickup match with my HS girls basketball team was.  Now, it ought not be embarassing, because our esteem of a what they accomplish shouldn't be diminished by the fact that they aren't men.   But it is embarassing because we have to maintain this mystique around the notion that they 'could beat the boys'.  The same is true of the US Women's National Soccer team (which BTW I love to watch).  They are the best in the world, but they'd be hard pressed against a quality boy's high school team.  That shouldn't diminish them (they are a whole lot better than I am), but for some reason for most people it does.

So, you post a video of the two time women's world Champion Muay Thai fighter fighting some random scrub who could probably beat me up but who isn't ranked in the top 5000 male MMA and you expect that that makes some impression on me?  Seriously?  

Moreover, a match of that sort has already equalized one of the two great disadvantages that a female fighter would find outside of the ring.  Sport combat ensures that the fighters are of nearly equal size.  So she matched up against another person near to her 130 lb size, and who is probably less experienced than her and certainly not in her class when it comes to competition level.  Faced up against her male counterpart though she'd literally be risking her life.



> Now, if you want to object to my argument that males get a lifting capacity bonus rather than a relative +3 Strength bonus, you are welcome to make that argument. But you're going to have to back it up.




Sure.  Lifting capacity in D&D gets skewed for the big numbers because it stop scaling linearly as it climbs.  The jump between two adjacent strength scores on that table keeps getting bigger and bigger.  So its not necessarily the best measurement especially where strength in D&D scale linearly elsewhere. To definitively prove my point, we'd have to come to some concensus as to what 'strength' meant and how this collective score could be measured.  I doubt we can.  I will note here that a +2 difference in strength in D20 is supposed to equate to about a 5% difference in outcome (as you yourself mention).  So here are some numbers to chew on.

100 meter freestyle swim: Men's 44.94; Women's 52.07 (16.8% slower) - Upper body strength is the big winner here.  

100 meter dash: Men's, 9.58; Women's 10.49 (9.5% slower); At only about 10% slower, women do pretty good here as any boy who has chased girls on a playground could tell you.  Size is of small consequence here.  But note that while 10.49 is really fast, the world record probably wouldn't place you in the top three finishers at a state level High School meet for boys.  

High Jump: Men's 2.45 m; Women's 2.09 m (15% lower) - A lot of this is probably greater atheletic ability in tall men than in tall women, but this is almost all fast muscle power which is where men and women really get really separated.  Mitigating that is the aforementioned closer leg strength of women to men.

Long Jump: Men's 8.95 m; Women's 7.52 m (16% shorter)

Now if we really trusted the D&D skill system this would be what, a +4 or even +6 difference in strength on the basis of out come?

As far as punching goes, I've heard some numbers out there for female women in the 1000lbs of force range which let me tell you is enough to knock you flat.  I don't want to take that to the face. The problem is that top male fighters are going to be generating something like 2800lbs of force.  It's just not even close once we get away from the lower range of male size.   I don't even know how to equate those sorts of differences.  In the real world and D&D terms, a lot of punching power is technique (Power Attack, anyone?), but I'm assuming her equal or even superior ability of the female to perform the technique.  The upper body power differences are just enormous.



> I happen to know that female kickboxers can generate a similar amount of force as a male one, which would imply no Strength difference at all.




Not in a punch they can't.  The leg strength of women doesn't lag the upper body strength of men quite as much, so the kick strength is going to be similar but its still going to lag behind.



> in SCA armored combat, women are overrepresented as Marshals compared to their level of participation in combat as a whole.




Well, that's hardly surprising.  You'd expect that when a women competes in a male theater they are heavily self-selecting.



> Better at melee?




Isn't that based highly on 'level', and not strength?



> Now, here's my counter-argument based on fiction. Whatever differences may or may not exist in the real world, they should apply, at best, to NPCs.




I'm ok with that.  I'm just annoyed by the few people (not necessarily you) that or either arguing that realisticly there is no physical difference that isn't a cultural construct anyway, and/or that if you think this sort of realism is ok it must mean you are sexist of some sort.  



> At a minimum, female characters should be provided a relatively as useful benefit.




Agreed.  I think in a 'realistic' game it would be difficult to quantify what those benefits where without going to levels of hyper-realism that most games don't bother with.  Reiterating what I said earlier, that isn't concidental.  The whole rules system of most RPGs, indeed the whole set of fundamental assumptions about the sort of challenges you are going to be facing in RPGs are geared to male strengths.  Rarely does your character have to finish a marathon in under a certain amount of time compared to how often he has to beat something up.  Rarely does the ability to rapidly memorize the contents of a list come up as often as hitting something with a stick, nor does sense motive or concentration (or as you said surviving a famine) play as large of a role as BAB.  And the sorts of rules common in RPGs reflect these biases.  Of course, those biases don't reflect the real world all that well either, as for most people 'beats people up good' would be an utterly useless superpower (but oddly or not it's the one most comic book readers care about).  In my fantasy game I use simple but unrealistic positive modifiers to charisma and wisdom to offset lower strength (and its optional anyway).  A more realistic system would break it down in to very complex circumstantial modifiers.



> What exactly is the point of taxing female (Class_X)? Should female adventurers of that class be less common for some reason?




Possibly.  Very few countries in my game world have mixed gender armies, but all of them have mixed gender clergy and arcane magic users are drawn almost equally from both sexes.  Taxing females could be seen as enforcing and explaining these social and cultural roles.  My primary goal is to simply defend the idea that a person could have that opinion without being a bad person, not to strike down as bad people who don't have a different stat packages for different genders.


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## pawsplay (May 6, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Lots of things.  The table of world record clean and jerks by weight and gender would be one of many objective examples.
> 
> I'll give you an ancedotal one though that was more impactful to me.  When I was in high school, we had the best girls basketball team in the state.




You picked the weakest of all possible examples. Girls do not compete at basketball at anywhere near the rate boys do. Smaller recruiting pool. Further, there is a good chance many of the girls, before joining HS basketball, had played little, or mainly with other boys. It is quite possible that "random guys in the gym" actually have more hours on the court than many of the girls on the court (probably not the star players). Plus, basketball has a big height thing going for it. Women are shorter. Once you factor in the smaller recruiting pool on top of that, you get a vastly shorter basketball team.



> Basically, you are doing the Billie Jean King comparison.  The idea here is that if you can find one female who excels a man in some atheletic competition, then it proves the physical equality of the sexes.




That is not at all what I'm doing. What I'm doing is providing an example of a "female fighter" and showing she can perform credibly. She was even able to bull rush and out-grapple her opponent. In D&D terms, she would likely be flatly stronger.



> This is a false test on any number of grounds not the least of which is that gender equality is not based on the idea of physical equality.  But of course, such fights are rigged.  The best women's tennis player in the world is better than 99.9% of all male tennis players, but probably not rank in the top 500 players in the world in mixed competition.




Right. But here's the thing. The top 500 players have probably _less than a +1 difference in skill over the next 5000_. There are days Tiger Woods gets out-golfed that day somebody has never heard of. Why? Because he's in a credibly close range with Tiger. But he could never be Tiger, because he's not going to win over and over and over again. The very highest levels of an athletic competition involve not only skill but luck and razor thin margins of victory.

Furthermore, athletic competitions are very controlled settings, which are going to really magnify differences, because you can control variables to a very high degree. The less controlled the setting, the less you can optimize in very particular ways.



> (BTW, the same is not true of say running a Marathon or some other sport where strength and consequently sprint speed are less important.  Move out a bit farther to ultra-marathons that depend on having very high percentages of slow muscle to high muscle, and women actually can often out compete men.)




Which by that measure, would women a higher Con. However, it seems unlikely women have more hit points. 



> It's well known that the reason you don't see say the Serena sisters doing exhibition matches against men is that it would be just as embarassing as the pickup match with my HS girls basketball team was.  Now, it ought not be embarassing, because our esteem of a what they accomplish shouldn't be diminished by the fact that they aren't men.   But it is embarassing because we have to maintain this mystique around the notion that they 'could beat the boys'.  The same is true of the US Women's National Soccer team (which BTW I love to watch).  They are the best in the world, but they'd be hard pressed against a quality boy's high school team.  That shouldn't diminish them (they are a whole lot better than I am), but for some reason for most people it does.




If they were countries, the men's soccer league would the USA, and the women's soccer league would be Jamaica. 



> So, you post a video of the two time women's world Champion Muay Thai fighter fighting some random scrub who could probably beat me up but who isn't ranked in the top 5000 male MMA and you expect that that makes some impression on me?  Seriously?




Can you take her? You want to arm wrestle her? 



> Moreover, a match of that sort has already equalized one of the two great disadvantages that a female fighter would find outside of the ring.  Sport combat ensures that the fighters are of nearly equal size.  So she matched up against another person near to her 130 lb size, and who is probably less experienced than her and certainly not in her class when it comes to competition level.  Faced up against her male counterpart though she'd literally be risking her life.




That dude looked a lot more than 130 lbs.



> Sure.  Lifting capacity in D&D gets skewed for the big numbers because it stop scaling linearly as it climbs.  The jump between two adjacent strength scores on that table keeps getting bigger and bigger.  So its not necessarily the best measurement especially where strength in D&D scale linearly elsewhere. To definitively prove my point, we'd have to come to some concensus as to what 'strength' meant and how this collective score could be measured.  I doubt we can.  I will note here that a +2 difference in strength in D20 is supposed to equate to about a 5% difference in outcome (as you yourself mention).  So here are some numbers to chew on.




5% relative to the DC.



> 100 meter freestyle swim: Men's 44.94; Women's 52.07 (16.8% slower) - Upper body strength is the big winner here.




Assuming a base DC of 5, that's pretty close to your 10% for a +2. After accounting, again, for the much greater number of male competitive athletes. 



> 100 meter dash: Men's, 9.58; Women's 10.49 (9.5% slower); At only about 10% slower, women do pretty good here as any boy who has chased girls on a playground could tell you.  Size is of small consequence here.  But note that while 10.49 is really fast, the world record probably wouldn't place you in the top three finishers at a state level High School meet for boys.




D&D doesn't relate Str to movement, and this probably has more to do with men's relatively long stride and compact pelvises.



> High Jump: Men's 2.45 m; Women's 2.09 m (15% lower) - A lot of this is probably greater atheletic ability in tall men than in tall women, but this is almost all fast muscle power which is where men and women really get really separated.  Mitigating that is the aforementioned closer leg strength of women to men.




This is a pretty strong one, if you assume D&D Str includes, to a degree, height. 



> Long Jump: Men's 8.95 m; Women's 7.52 m (16% shorter)




Real-life: again, longer stride. In D&D, this is a pretty good case for up to a +3 difference in Jump ratings.



> Now if we really trusted the D&D skill system this would be what, a +4 or even +6 difference in strength on the basis of out come?




Whoa, there. Up to +6 difference in _skill_. For Strength, you can't just take the biggest number. You have to pick something representative. 



> As far as punching goes, I've heard some numbers out there for female women in the 1000lbs of force range which let me tell you is enough to knock you flat.  I don't want to take that to the face. The problem is that top male fighters are going to be generating something like 2800lbs of force.




There is no question men have a punching advantage.



> It's just not even close once we get away from the lower range of male size.   I don't even know how to equate those sorts of differences.  In the real world and D&D terms, a lot of punching power is technique (Power Attack, anyone?), but I'm assuming her equal or even superior ability of the female to perform the technique.  The upper body power differences are just enormous.




In D&D and real life, technique magnifies power differences. But again, just using punch strength is a cheap measure, because mechanically, men excel at punching.



> Not in a punch they can't.




In a kick they can't in a punch?



> The leg strength of women doesn't lag the upper body strength of men quite as much, so the kick strength is going to be similar but its still going to lag behind.




Lag, sure. Again, there are many fewer kickboxers. But it's not going to lag that much. 



> Well, that's hardly surprising.  You'd expect that when a women competes in a male theater they are heavily self-selecting.




Much like adventurers.



> Isn't that based highly on 'level', and not strength?




Assuming they are 4th level or below, Str is pretty significant.



> I'm ok with that.  I'm just annoyed by the few people (not necessarily you) that or either arguing that realisticly there is no physical difference that isn't a cultural construct anyway, and/or that if you think this sort of realism is ok it must mean you are sexist of some sort.




Who, exactly, is arguing that? Care to quote something out of this thread?



> The whole rules system of most RPGs, indeed the whole set of fundamental assumptions about the sort of challenges you are going to be facing in RPGs are geared to male strengths.




What are "male" strengths? Most RPGs don't center around clean-and-jerks, throwing baseballs, or peeing standing up.



> Rarely does your character have to finish a marathon in under a certain amount of time compared to how often he has to beat something up.




In fact, very rarely does a roleplaying game even reach the level of detail necessary to rate "world experts" in any field. You would have to go to a % system at minimum.


 Rarely does the ability to rapidly memorize the contents of a list come up as often as hitting something with a stick, nor does sense motive or concentration (or as you said surviving a famine) play as large of a role as BAB.  And the sorts of rules common in RPGs reflect these biases.  Of course, those biases don't reflect the real world all that well either, as for most people 'beats people up good' would be an utterly useless superpower (but oddly or not it's the one most comic book readers care about).  In my fantasy game I use simple but unrealistic positive modifiers to charisma and wisdom to offset lower strength (and its optional anyway).  A more realistic system would break it down in to very complex circumstantial modifiers.



> Possibly.  Very few countries in my game world have mixed gender armies, but all of them have mixed gender clergy and arcane magic users are drawn almost equally from both sexes.  Taxing females could be seen as enforcing and explaining these social and cultural roles.




Why would you enforce those roles in PCs? Do you also tax people who want to play thieves, social outsiders, or sorcerers? (or whatever passes for abnormal in your world; maybe those are common day jobs)



> My primary goal is to simply defend the idea that a person could have that opinion without being a bad person, not to strike down as bad people who don't have a different stat packages for different genders.




I don't think people are _bad people_ for having different stats. I just think

1) they may be, knowingly or not, disparaging player interest in playing the kind of character they want to play
2) reflecting their own biases in exaggering or simplifying constructs into game terms
3) ignoring the fact that adventurers are self-selecting and do not reflect averages in any way


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## Gryph (May 6, 2011)

Crothian said:


> <snip>
> It could be constructed to not have any patriarchal gender roles. Unless you are just saying there is no in game reason that you could see that would allow for unequal gender mechanics at your table.




I snipped above here because I think we've come to pretty good statement of our respective opinions and I've already repeated myself too much.

I can absolutely see many ways to create an in-game reality with sharp, divine mandated/created gender roles that would not be patriarchal. I was talking about my female friends perceptions of house rules that made a mechanical distinction between men and women. After a couple of decades I think they would give me enough benefit of the doubt to see how it played out in the game; but their immediate reaction would be pretty doubtful.

I have really enjoyed this exchange, Crothian, thanks.


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## The Shaman (May 6, 2011)

Jon_Dahl said:


> In RPGs, should there be difference between genders?



[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H_-bA-Ww5U]The Difference[/ame]


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## Fifth Element (May 8, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> World Record High Jump



That's even more impressive when you factor in the massive mullet that guy had to get over the bar as well.

_Note: I fully expect someone to have already made this joke, but I can't be bothered to read the rest of the thread to find out._


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## Odhanan (May 8, 2011)

Just so you guys know, Professor Cirno is quoting your posts on SomethingAwful, on grognard.txt. See posts following this one (following page as well).


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## Fifth Element (May 8, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> peeing standing up.



Best feat ever.


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## pawsplay (May 8, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> Best feat ever.




Pee Standing Up [GENERAL]
Prerequisites: Male, or Dex 13+
Benefit: You are able to pee standing up. If the wind changes, you may make a Reflex save (DC 14) to immediately stop peeing, even if it is not your turn. You are immune to diseases spread by toilet seats, provided you do not need to poop, although you may still spread them yourself. Attempts to track you by toilet seat are at -10. You may pee on a tree as a move action, which does not provoke an attack of opportunity. You may don pants hastily without penalty.
Normal: You must make a ranged touch attack to hit the toilet when you pee. You may be tracked by toilet seat. Peeing on a tree is a standard action which provokes on attack of opportunity. Attempting to don pants hastily may incur penalties, depending on the complexity of your lower garments.


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## TarionzCousin (May 8, 2011)

Aus_Snow said:


> What if I played a half-Elf/half-Dwarf?



"Dwalfs" and/or "Erfs"? I don't believe they exist.


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## S'mon (May 8, 2011)

In the real world, men and women differ hugely in median attributes, BUT that doesn't mean a game should necessarily impose bonuses & penalties on male & female PCs.  It works for a gender-differentiated game setting like Pendragon; but in a D&D style game, if a player wants to play a female warrior, should their character be mechanically penalised? Personally I don't think so. As DM I assume that the general mass of humans and most near-humans do differ a lot by sex in median strength etc, but this doesn't mean female PCs are or should be penalised.


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## Fifth Element (May 8, 2011)

TarionzCousin said:


> I don't believe they exist.



Famous last words.


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## Bedrockgames (May 8, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> That's even more impressive when you factor in the massive mullet that guy had to get over the bar as well.
> 
> _Note: I fully expect someone to have already made this joke, but I can't be bothered to read the rest of the thread to find out._




No the mullet is the source of his power, not a weakness.


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## Bedrockgames (May 8, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Pee Standing Up [GENERAL]
> Prerequisites: Male, or Dex 13+
> Benefit: You are able to pee standing up. If the wind changes, you may make a Reflex save (DC 14) to immediately stop peeing, even if it is not your turn. You are immune to diseases spread by toilet seats, provided you do not need to poop, although you may still spread them yourself. Attempts to track you by toilet seat are at -10. You may pee on a tree as a move action, which does not provoke an attack of opportunity. You may don pants hastily without penalty.
> Normal: You must make a ranged touch attack to hit the toilet when you pee. You may be tracked by toilet seat. Peeing on a tree is a standard action which provokes on attack of opportunity. Attempting to don pants hastily may incur penalties, depending on the complexity of your lower garments.




This feat needs should be accompanied Urinary Retention save after age 40 (and after surgery).


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## Umbran (May 9, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Lots of things.  The table of world record clean and jerks by weight and gender would be one of many objective examples.






> Basically, you are doing the Billie Jean King comparison.  The idea here is that if you can find one female who excels a man in some atheletic competition, then it proves the physical equality of the sexes.




I think if you're doing much the same with your clean and jerk comparison - that's comparing ultimate maximum potential of a small number of some types of individuals, not what generally happens in the populace.  

A more proper comparison would be *randomly chosen* men and women, trained equally for the clean and jerk, for long enough that their prior lifestyles don't impact the results much.  Tag on some corrections to the statistics for body size...

And you'll probably still find that men can generally lift more than women, but you'll come by that result more validly


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## Celebrim (May 9, 2011)

Umbran said:


> I think if you're doing much the same with your clean and jerk comparison - that's comparing ultimate maximum potential of a small number of some types of individuals, not what generally happens in the populace.




That's not a valid analogy.  Comparing the top man to the top women is very different than comparing the top women to a man of more ordinary ability.  Why for example isn't the reverse comparison made: the top male tennis player versus the 600th best female tennis player in the world?   How valid would it be to claim that men are better than women in tennis because the men's champion could beat a girl on a high school junior varsity team?

The only reasons for comparing world records rather than a broader range of data is that:

a) it's a case of like compared to like 

AND

b) it's easily available and authoratative data.

I could site scientific studies about average strength gain differences of men and women who do strength training, it's just the numbers wouldn't be as easy for me to get a hold of.  I'm not going to spend 12 hours digging up scientific articles for the purpose of proving my point.

The important point though is that I'm comparing 'like to like'.  Comparing Serena Willaims to an office worker that doesn't play tennis is not comparing like to like.  Comparing a top female MMA to a computer programmer with limited combat experience isn't a valid comparison.

Moreover, for the purposes of convincing myself, deep research isn't required.   I have significant first person experience with the difference in lifting capacity, throwing distance etc. of randomly chosen men and women.  

In short, for the purposes of an internet discussion, I don't consider the burden of effort to lie wholly on me.  If someone wishes to overturn the intuitive notion that men are on average signfiicantly stronger than women, I believe the larger burden of proof lies with them.   That they often reach for Billie Jean King mythologies where one women of outstanding ability defeats a man of much more ordinary ability is in my opinion actually evidence on my side of the point.   In the case of Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs, it was the world women's tennis champion versus a semi-retired 55 year old who was hamming up the 'male chauvinist' card for the purposes of making a buck.



> A more proper comparison would be *randomly chosen* men and women, trained equally for the clean and jerk, for long enough that their prior lifestyles don't impact the results much.




Studies based on the results of military basic training are one area that has been looked at for very large data sets.  Suffice to say that men start out stronger than women, improve strength faster under conditioning than women, and ultimately maintain a proportional lead on women after training.

I realize that this is very 'politically incorrect' to talk about.  Right now our society is steeped in the mythology of he 'kick-butt girl' who can defeat men in outright contests of strength and power, and if you point out how much of a mythology this is and the tricks used to sustain this mythology you are considered sexist.   I could cite dozens of examples of this archetype from media, but notably all would be from fiction.  However, basing beliefs on a lie IMO does a disservice to everyone, firstly because it sets false expectations up and secondly because it undermines the very claim of equality that its intended to support because as a basis of equality strength is a very unsound comparison.


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## El Mahdi (May 9, 2011)

@ProfessorCirno 



Odhanan said:


> Just so you guys know, Professor Cirno is quoting your posts on SomethingAwful, on grognard.txt. See posts following this one (following page as well).




Not surprising. I doubt anyone here is really bothered by this though. If what's being posted here is okay by ENWorlds forum/posting rules, I doubt anyone here is going to be embarassed or ashamed of their posts being seen on other sites.

As for reposting and replying to them on another site, I don't see how it's really a conversation. Replying to something said here on another site, where the original poster probably doesn't even know it's there (and therefore can't respond), seems more like just having a conversation/argument with ones self. If one has the courage of their own convictions, and isn't afraid of what someone may think of or reply about their post, then why reply to posts in secret somewhere else? Or reply somewhere else because it's the only place one can be allowed to be indiscriminately rude or condescending?

Seems to me that if one finds themself unable or unwilling to directly address themself to someone, then maybe one should seriously consider whether there's something fundamentally flawed with the opinion or manner of presentation in the first place...

I did find this post interesting though: 



			
				ProfessorCirno said:
			
		

> EN World is the worst loving place ever




Then why post nearly 3 posts a day (8 posts on the 29th of March), with over 3,000 posts here.



Anyways...



For the most part, I've found this conversation (all sides of this conversation) quite interesting.

There's been some good points raised throughout this thread both for and against including mechanical differences. As with most things it seems to come down to personal preference, which is as it should be. I don't think any opinion voiced in this thread has been _"wrong"_, though I don't personally agree with everything here_._ I have found this thread interesting as I've been thinking a bit about this very thing lately while working on my own houserules. This thread has actually caused me to reconsider some of the things I had previously decided about this. I still want some limitations for the sake of reality, so I'll probably still have limits on maximum allowed strength scores with different maximums based on gender, but that's probably all I'll impose now (rather than pluses and minuses at character creation). And that's because of some of the things I've read in this thread.

It's been a good conversation.


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## ThirdWizard (May 9, 2011)

Looking at the kick boxing example, as a skill set, wouldn't that be more a reflection of levels than base stats? In fact, many things discussed in this thread have more in common with levels than stats. A 5th level fighter with 10 strength will beat a 1st level fighter with 18 strength due to differences in hit points, BAB, and feats.

So the clear answer here is to give females an xp penalty when their class's primary stat is Strength.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 9, 2011)

I've got a different take on the original question.  I find gender adjustments rather pointless in any game that is point-buy or something very close to it.  Basically, the more control over the final abilities which can be exercised by the player during character generation, the less sense such adjustments make.  And the same can be said for racial, cultural, and other such adjustments.  Mainly, what such adjustments becomes in such a setup is:

A. Defacto maximum enforcement, which could be better handled by simply stating the maximums,

B. A mini-game for optimization, which I'm prejudiced against anyway, or

C. Leftover artifacts from earlier gaming with all kinds of strange side effects, at best.

In contrast, I'm fine with gender differences in, for example, a game where you generate all of your basic background randomly or mostly randomly.  If you could be a poor, social outcast, third daughter of a failed cobbler, with no literacy--or you might be the highly trained noble, second son of a lord--then tacking on any kind of gender adjustment is merely another minor factor--rather minimized in the summary.  The whole point of such a game is often to overcome whatever hurdles the character generation has placed onto you.  

Clearly, there are some in between options in games.  But by the time you've gotten to assigning stats from point buy, I'm against any kind of starting character adjustments.  Gender ones don't even make the radar.


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## NewJeffCT (May 9, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> I realize that this is very 'politically incorrect' to talk about.  Right now our society is steeped in the mythology of he 'kick-butt girl' who can defeat men in outright contests of strength and power, and if you point out how much of a mythology this is and the tricks used to sustain this mythology you are consider sexist.   I could cite dozens of examples from media, but notably all would be from fiction.  However, basing beliefs on a lie IMO does a disservice to everyone, firstly because it sets false expectations up and secondly because it undermines the very claim of equality that its intended to support because as a basis of equality strength is a very unsound comparison.




I agree that men are physically stronger, both on average, and at elite/athletic levels.  I used to cover high school/college athletics back in the 90s on a part-time basis, and I know that's true from my perspective.

However, I think most of the kick butt women from the past 15-20 years in the media are that way because they have some special/extraordinary power, or because they have undergone extraordinary training.

Buffy Summers was The Slayer, granted extraordinary strength to help her fight vampires.
Max from Dark Angel was a genetically enhanced woman
Sarah Connor from Terminator 2 was muscular, but I don't recall her being extraordinarily strong in the movie (though, it's been years since I've seen the movie).  I think she overpowered her shrink - but, I think my 8 year old daughter might be able to overpower that guy, too.  
The two women from Crouching Tiger had some sort of special power as well...

I think a lot of the other women, though, are exceptional because of extraordinary martial training, not exceptional strength - Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft or Salt (superstar vs mooks); Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in Iron Man 2 (again, superstar vs a bunch of mooks); Uma Thurman from the Kill Bill movies - epic level swordswoman with a super sword against a bunch of mooks.  (Though, that one did take it to the extreme.)

I'm sure there are plenty of examples of it going over the top, but I do think most cases are kick-ass women who kick ass because of a super power and/or super training.


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## S'mon (May 10, 2011)

NewJeffCT said:


> I'm sure there are plenty of examples of it going over the top, but I do think most cases are kick-ass women who kick ass because of a super power and/or super training.




Agreed - although potentially there is a danger to women in them thinking they are equally as strong as men, I'm not sure if many actually think that, even after watching a dozen Xena re-runs.  It seems to be mostly sedentary males who believe in this "no median strength difference" meme.  Actual butt-kicking women such as police officers tend to spend a lot of their time around butt-kicking men, and are thus well aware of the actual difference!


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## NewJeffCT (May 10, 2011)

S'mon said:


> Agreed - although potentially there is a danger to women in them thinking they are equally as strong as men, I'm not sure if many actually think that, even after watching a dozen Xena re-runs.  It seems to be mostly sedentary males who believe in this "no median strength difference" meme.  Actual butt-kicking women such as police officers tend to spend a lot of their time around butt-kicking men, and are thus well aware of the actual difference!




I think you're right on it being sedentary males who think that.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> In short, for the purposes of an internet discussion, I don't consider the burden of effort to lie wholly on me.  If someone wishes to overturn the intuitive notion that men are on average signfiicantly stronger than women, I believe the larger burden of proof lies with them.   That they often reach for Billie Jean King mythologies where one women of outstanding ability defeats a man of much more ordinary ability is in my opinion actually evidence on my side of the point.  ...
> 
> I realize that this is very 'politically incorrect' to talk about.  Right now our society is steeped in the mythology of he 'kick-butt girl' who can defeat men in outright contests of strength and power, and if you point out how much of a mythology this is and the tricks used to sustain this mythology you are considered sexist.




Oh, please. You're so oppressed, right? Look, I can't think of a single instance in this entire thread where someone has made the argument you claim they are making. Everyone agrees men are stronger than women. Everyone.

What has not been demonstrated is that there is a good real-life or dramatic reason why this should translate into a large numeric difference in "Strength." A small difference already generates all you need and more. 



> Studies based on the results of military basic training are one area that has been looked at for very large data sets.  Suffice to say that men start out stronger than women, improve strength faster under conditioning than women, and ultimately maintain a proportional lead on women after training.




Another really terrible example. You take a much larger group of men to a smaller group of women, and the men are at least as self-selecting for athletic ability, if not moreso. On top of that, men are culturally influenced to exercise for power, which means men are going to be recreationally hitting the barbells at much higher rates than women. 

Do you simply refuse to believe that natural strength differences between men and women are not hugely modulated by self-selection, cultural differences, and opportunities for fair comparisons? Because that's really the impression I'm getting. Would you please clarify what exactly you're trying to prove?

Do you specifically want to claim men should get a +4 or more Str bonus relative to women in terms of lifting power? Do you want to quibble with my claim that part of the lifting difference reflects greater mass and overall muscle power in the male body, rather than an outright difference in athleticism? If so, do you want to quibble for one point, two, or all three?

Given the rather artifical nature of ability scores in D&D, I think the burden of proof is to demonstrate even one point of difference, much less two and a whole +1 bonus on checks. Lifting strength is not even a debate; everyone agrees men lift more. Since D&D already agrees larger creatures lift more, I think we can chalk that up to a lack of detail in an area that, frankly, no one cares all that much about.


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## Celebrim (May 10, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Oh, please. You're so oppressed, right?




LOL.  So long as you are going to try to play psychologist with me, I might as well say that I'm arrogant enough to think it is far beyond your power to oppress me intellectually or rhetorically.  I can hold my own quite well, thanks nothing for your [false] concern.



> Look, I can't think of a single instance in this entire thread where someone has made the argument you claim they are making. Everyone agrees men are stronger than women. Everyone.




And with that statement, you follow up with a long post where you walk away from that claim as fast as you can go, until within just a few sentences you've rationalized all the way to: 



> Given the rather artifical nature of ability scores in D&D, I think the burden of proof is to demonstrate even one point of difference...




Right, so everyone agrees men are stronger, just not so much stronger that it could be quantified as even a single point of difference.



> I think we can chalk that up to a lack of detail in an area that, frankly, no one cares all that much about.




Once again, if you don't really care about this subject, why are you bothering to post?

The first page or so of this thread had four or five posts with people jumping on the OP with veiled or open accusations that the whole idea was sexist and/or that anyone who held such ideas was probably racist.  And, in that, you think I'm worried about being oppressed?  I'm defending an idea I don't even implement in my own house rules, and you think I'm playing some sort of victim card?  This is just another bit of, "If someone disagrees with me, it must be because there is something emotionally wrong with them."  You aren't content to challenge me on anything of substance, instead you start up with a passive aggressive ad hominem attack and follow up with a bunch of logical fallacies.  I don't have to quibble with your strawmen.  I have already tried to answer one of your rhetorical questions as if you were honestly making it.  If you aren't going to listen then, there is no reason to think you'd listen now.

So let's be honest here so that my time is worth it.  Is there any evidence I could possibly present that would cause you reassess your repeatedly stated belief that the real life physical differences cannot be quantified as even a single point of difference in strength?  Because if that's your faith based conviction, we shouldn't bother discussing it.


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## Celebrim (May 10, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> I've got a different take on the original question.  I find gender adjustments rather pointless in any game that is point-buy or something very close to it.  Basically, the more control over the final abilities which can be exercised by the player during character generation, the less sense such adjustments make.




One thing that this thread has brought me to realize is just how fair and reasonable the original 1e D&D implementation of gender differences was.  Compared to a penalty, a cap on the starting maximum is such a unintrusive nod to realism, that it's hardly constraining at all.  The likely hood that you'd roll up a character that couldn't be female (without cheating) is exceptionally small, and it really lets you select from a character at the far end of the bell curve without worrying about where the middle may be.

I'm continually impressed by the sheer gameability of D&D, and that as someone who as a snot nosed arrogant 20 year old was absolutely sure that D&D was just about the worst designed system ever.  Hat tip to Gygax though.



> Clearly, there are some in between options in games.  But by the time you've gotten to assigning stats from point buy, I'm against any kind of starting character adjustments.  Gender ones don't even make the radar.




Yeah, the converse of that is another system that I really like and admire that's the D6 system in its old form (such as 1e Star Wars).  In there they had point, and mostly had only minimum and maximum traits, and it too often felt like your choices were meaningless unless you were going to play some one dimensional character.  It would be as if the only reason to play a man was to play a muscle bound character.  I've seen the Star Wars racial templates played with for balance (and played around with them some myself) and one mechanic that always struck me as interesting was making it easier for one race to advance certain characteristics.  It's less applicable to a level based system than it is to a skill based system like D6, but I really like that and found it modelled the difference between diverse aliens far better than just a series of minimum and maximum attributes.  Without it, there was little reason ever to get away from human.

Of course it still doesn't get us away from sterotypes completely, but that's not entirely a bad thing.  Or at least, since we can't seem to get away from them, we might as well try to make a virtue out of a vice.  A sterotype, especially within a story, doesn't have to be demeaning, nor does a sterotype necessarily mean that the resulting character doesn't gain in skilled hands depth and individuality.


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## Banshee16 (May 10, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Even things like weight-lifting do not evince a huge divide; while men are unquestionably stronger to a very significant degree, the actual amount of difference is not huge. Strong women are often stronger than only slightly strong men.




Has this actually been proven?  My understanding is that the world records for men and women *are* significantly different.....the top men lifting about 45% more than the top women.  It stands to reason....in the absence of extreme training, I believe men have a much higher percentage of muscle tissue.

I'll preface my statement by saying that I know I'm not a super muscular person.....I know my experience at the gym, I'm usually lifting about 6x as much weight as the women I've observed.  I'll see them straining at lifting 30 lbs, and I'm lifting 175-190.  I *have* met some pretty strong women.....one girl in my class in High School was known as very strong.  I remember running into her accidentally in a touch football game and being sent flying.  But that was an exception rather than a rule.  I'm not saying this to disparage any women.  Just making an observation.

On that note, I know there are hardcore women who can lift far more than 170 lbs....but if you're talking about the average population.....then I think the differences are exaggerated.  I *have* known some women with incredible endurance.  But even there, the person I've known with the most endurance was a male.  Another lifeguard (my boss) I used to train with.  I remember watching him swim 120 laps without stopping one evening.  He was a machine.

In previous versions of the game, I balanced things by applying a max strength or penalty to female characters...but giving them a bonus to CON.  In 3E, I didn't bother....though I usually just ruled that PC females were the exception, and had NPC females have a strength penalty.  I don't see a need to enforce limitations like this on PCs.  Sure, it feels realistic, but I'm not trying to create disincentives against my players choosing certain character types.

Banshee


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## PurpleXVI (May 10, 2011)

Hold up let me take some time out of my day to justify what some dude who's like 300 poudns of onion rings thinks about ~*~women~*~ in his RPG.  ...Nope, couldn't quite do it.  Sorry.


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## Ashel (May 10, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> One thing that this thread has brought me to realize is just how fair and reasonable the original 1e D&D implementation of gender differences was.  Compared to a penalty, a cap on the starting maximum is such a unintrusive nod to realism, that it's hardly constraining at all.  The likely hood that you'd roll up a character that couldn't be female (without cheating) is exceptionally small, and it really lets you select from a character at the far end of the bell curve without worrying about where the middle may be.



But is it a nod to realism that _matters in any substantial way_? Does it come off as being of any significant worth? Does your game gain in any way from decreasing player choice arbitrarily? Because that's what it is - a random hamfisted attack on player choice via a rule cloaked under the veil of 'realism', entirely forgetting the part where player characters are perfectly allowed and even encouraged to reside in that top 1% as the unique snowflakes of their time.


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## Styxs (May 10, 2011)

I still see female characters play the back seat role in many rpgs. Generally they are healers or some form of spell caster. If not they're an Archer or a Rogue type. FF13 was the first rpg I've seen in awhile with the female character playing a warrior type.


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## RedTonic (May 10, 2011)

I disagree with the notion that RPGs, in general, should _enforce_ any stat-based difference between genders in _human_ characters. It's limiting for the optimizers out there, annoying to the politico/anthro/sociological types out there, and not of especial mathematical/statistical interest despite the obsession of several posters with bringing up means, medians, and modes of size and lifting power. Honestly, though, if I HAD to assess stats, I'd simply give male humans a slight bonus to Str and female humans a slight bonus to Con.

Why? Because in the end, I will probably outlive all of the male posters in this thread, barring accident or foul play. I mean, if I'm murdered, it will probably be by a male romantic partner or friend, but hey, nobody's assessing a Wis penalty on any of the guys in this topic to mimic the statistical data on _murderers_, sufferers of schizophrenia, and _violent, career criminals_. 

Though I think the accusations, outright and veiled, of sexism and racism are indicative of possible Cha penalties, as someone previously mentioned, because insults aren't a good way of bringing someone around to your point of view (even just to agree to disagree). It's certainly disrespectful.

If anything, the physical differences between the sexes are of diminishing importance in the developing and developed worlds. I disagree with the notion that men are somehow inherently better at higher levels of theoretical mathematics as well; I think that's mainly a result of self-selection and social pressures. As a girl, I was explicitly and implicitly pressured _not_ to excel in mathematics, and I'm not even 25 years old yet. If we accept that the "lot" of women has improved over time (define that as you will), and hence we're more equal in society than ever before, the influence on women to really not bother with mathematics must have been pretty rough. That is also putting aside that women haven't always been encouraged to even become literate at the most basic level, and that women everywhere still aren't. We aren't discussing assessing anyone a penalty to Int or Appraisal, though.

If intelligence and physical measures aren't of great importance, then the difference must be psychological (let's just put aside matters of the soul). Quantifying such issues is difficult in a meaningful and concise way fit for gaming. The best and most satisfying method, in my opinion, and as has been expressed in this topic already, is to let the differences between the sexes, as well as the similarities, shine through in role play.

And honestly, if you don't care about roleplaying, why do you care about assigning differences to men versus women?


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## Darwinism (May 10, 2011)

Banshee16 said:


> I'll preface my statement by saying that I know I'm not a super muscular person.....I know my experience at the gym, I'm usually lifting about 6x as much weight as the women I've observed.  I'll see them straining at lifting 30 lbs, and I'm lifting 175-190.  I *have* met some pretty strong women.....one girl in my class in High School was known as very strong.  I remember running into her accidentally in a touch football game and being sent flying.  But that was an exception rather than a rule.  I'm not saying this to disparage any women.  Just making an observation.
> 
> On that note, I know there are hardcore women who can lift far more than 170 lbs....but if you're talking about the average population.....then I think the differences are exaggerated.  I *have* known some women with incredible endurance.  But even there, the person I've known with the most endurance was a male.  Another lifeguard (my boss) I used to train with.  I remember watching him swim 120 laps without stopping one evening.  He was a machine.





If you think the average population of men can bench 170 you're really, really sheltered. Hell, just implying that makes me hugely skeptical that you lift at all, because it implies a staggering amount of ignorance about physical conditioning in general. And among the population who doesn't work out at all I would bet my ass that average strength would be much, much closer than you want to think.





Banshee16 said:


> In previous versions of the game, I balanced things by applying a max strength or penalty to female characters...but giving them a bonus to CON.  In 3E, I didn't bother....though I usually just ruled that PC females were the exception, and had NPC females have a strength penalty.  I don't see a need to enforce limitations like this on PCs.  Sure, it feels realistic, but I'm not trying to create disincentives against my players choosing certain character types.





It doesn't feel 'realistic' it feels superior. There's no 'realistic' reason to penalize a gender unless you feel the need to assert that you're better than they are.


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH9af-PpYAY]YouTube - female powerlifter 330 lbs deadlift[/ame]
Also here is a woman deadlifting almost three times her weight. Tip: that kind of ratio is extremely similar to what the world record male deadlifter has at 378lbs to 1015lbs lifted. Even a bit less efficient on his part. And she's done better.

But but but girls can't dooo thaaaaat.


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## S'mon (May 10, 2011)

Darwinism said:


> YouTube - female powerlifter 330 lbs deadlift
> Also here is a woman deadlifting almost three times her weight. Tip: that kind of ratio is extremely similar to what the world record male deadlifter has at 378lbs to 1015lbs lifted. Even a bit less efficient on his part. And she's done better.
> 
> But but but girls can't dooo thaaaaat.




The man is still much stronger than the woman in absolute terms, though.  D&D STR is not "strength divided by weight", it's just strength.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 10, 2011)

S'mon said:


> The man is still much stronger than the woman in absolute terms, though. D&D STR is not "strength divided by weight", it's just strength.




Five ladies have been regular players in our group since '87. We've had several others off and on. Without fail, their concerns on this issue have always been one of image, not mechanics. That is, when they had an issue at all. Most of the time, they don't care. It depends upon the system, of course.

For example, one of them played a male dwarf instead of a female dwarf, because she really wanted to play a dwarf warrior, and couldn't reconcile the image of the character, his physical capabilities, and her own preferences about how it would all work. This was in a system with no gender adjustments. Another lady only played a short, tough, strong female human warrior after she found out that she didn't have to look like a body builder to get those stats (which is highly fantastical, but fine for that particular game).

Part of the problem for fantasy gaming, of course, is a system linking strength to martial prowess. That is realistic in some senses, but often a bit oversold mechanically and too broad. Skill with your weapon is so much more important, and it is very difficult to develop that skill without also honing the correct muscles.  Teach 100 ladies how to fence with a rapier, and some may become expert, and capable of quickly killing any man not trained with a weapon.  None of them will become confused with weight lifters as a result of the exercise.  (A few might lift weights as an adjunct to this training, if they think they'll be called upon to kill, and thus grow stronger.)


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## Celebrim (May 10, 2011)

> but hey, nobody's assessing a Wis penalty on any of the guys in this topic to mimic the statistical data on _murderers_, sufferers of schizophrenia, and _violent, career criminals_.




You mean like adventurers?  

Welcome to the thread.  There is a whole bundle of things to unpack from your post, and I probably won't get to them all.

First of all, I'd like to note that women's ability to live longer natural lives than men (barring death from childbirth) isn't something that a normal RPG invests much interest in.  The last time I read anything that really cared about this it was 1e D&D, and I've never really seen a campaign go long enough that it mattered.  Constitution is usually most obviously important for making one resistant to physical trauma, an area that is more usually related to size and cross sectional area of bones, and which really doesn't give one much ability to live a long healthy life.   In fact, the idea of giving women a Constitution bonus is interesting because there are many areas where it makes sense.  Women do tend to do better at pain tolerance, endurance, famine resistance, and longevity.   But the problem is that normally Constitution implicitly or explicitly bundles thoughs things together with being a big hefty beefcake as if they were secondary attributes of being stout.   In fact, they aren't and a scrawny looking women is more likely to excell at feats of endurance than a 300lb NFL linemen, even as the linemen is far less likely to suffer broken bones after a bone jarring hit.  So the basic problem here is that D&D - and practically every other RPG you can name - doesn't consider it important to distinguish between the two.  

It's not realistic, and what it does is force you to play by rules and for goals where men excel.   There is a built in male bias to the game systems and what they concentrate on simulating - usually physical combat, usually melee combat at that.   Consider for example the details usually lavished on grappling.

Because of this built in male bias, I to tend to avoid enforcing stat based differences between the genders.   My houserules don't do it.  The tools that might make it both interesting and realistic at the same time just aren't there.  And even though for much of my DMing career, most of my players were female, there just isn't a lot of demand for it.

You suggestions that men should get Wisdom and Charisma penalties are also interesting.   They probably aren't strictly realistic, because Wisdom and Charisma also bundle together complicated things, but they do have some justification.  There is a reason that women tend end up as receptionists and spokes persons.  Both genders tend to prefer it and be more comfortable with it.  In my own game, to the extent that I do penalize men, it is exactly in this way that I penalize them.  The optional trait, "Fairer Sex", gives you a -4 penalty to STR and a +2 bonus on WIS and CHR.  It's not fully realistic, but its close enough and it is my opinion interesting.



RedTonic said:


> I disagree with the notion that RPGs, in general, should _enforce_ any stat-based difference between genders in _human_ characters.




To a certain extent I do to.  However, I don't go as far as to suggest that "in general" constitutes a universal ban on the practice or that empasizing gender differences couldn't be interesting.   For one thing, deempasizing them doesn't strike me as being exactly the same thing as being respectful and comfortable with the opposite sex.  It strikes me more like the character in "Dorkness Rising" who is playing a female character but keeps forgetting he's female (except when he uses the character as a slut).  To the extent that I find people get annoyed when you bring up differences between the sexes, I often wonder whether there comfort depends on being willfully blind to the differences.  



> It's limiting for the optimizers out there




Actually, it puts another tool in the hands of optimizers.  Of course, it may mean that to play a particular optimal build you may have to play a character of a particular gender, but you are comfortable with that right?   I mean, I'm the DM, I have to do it all the time.



> annoying to the politico/anthro/sociological types out there




I consider that a feature, and not a bug.



> I disagree with the notion that men are somehow inherently better at higher levels of theoretical mathematics as well; I think that's mainly a result of self-selection and social pressures.




In my experience, women tend to self-select out of any profession that requires them to be alone and involved in a lot of tedious emotionally unrewarding work.   So at least entertain the possibility that being a high level theoretical mathemetician favors among other things having a lower than normal wisdom, just because the quality of life you sacrifice for the joy of solving an equation is probably pretty high.



> And honestly, if you don't care about roleplaying, why do you care about assigning differences to men versus women?




I think you make this question rhetorically, but to me its actually the most interesting question you make, because I don't know the answer to it but looking at the question I think it probably has some very interesting answers.  I think your question ultimately comes down to, "What should roleplaying be about?"   The emphasis on stat minutia is not an emphasis on role playing, and suggests totally different motives and goals of play.


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## ThirdWizard (May 10, 2011)

A halfling has a -2 penalty to strength, and they're, what, the size of a toddler?


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## RedTonic (May 10, 2011)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> You mean like adventurers?



I knew you'd say that.



> unpack



I try to remain terse.



> But the problem is that normally  Constitution implicitly or explicitly bundles thoughs things together  with being a big hefty beefcake as if they were secondary attributes of  being stout.   In fact, they aren't and a scrawny looking women is more  likely to excell at feats of endurance than a 300lb NFL linemen, even as  the linemen is far less likely to suffer broken bones after a bone  jarring hit.  So the basic problem here is that D&D - and  practically every other RPG you can name - doesn't consider it important  to distinguish between the two.



If you want to consider Constitution in that manner, that's your decision; in all things, you pick and choose the rules you apply and how you want to apply them. Hence my issue with _enforcing_. I prefer _options_.



> It's not realistic, and what it does is force you to play by rules and  for goals where men excel.   There is a built in male bias to the game  systems and what they concentrate on simulating - usually physical  combat, usually melee combat at that.   Consider for example the details  usually lavished on grappling.
> 
> Because of this built in male bias, I to tend to avoid enforcing stat  based differences between the genders.   My houserules don't do it.  The  tools that might make it both interesting and realistic at the same  time just aren't there.  And even though for much of my DMing career,  most of my players were female, there just isn't a lot of demand for it.



I have no beef with the notion that combat-oriented games and campaigns are inherently biased towards the male gender (though I'll say nothing of biological sex). Wargames and war trend strongly towards the dude end of the continuum. 

I agree with how you handle it at the table, more or less, as you present your treatment here.

I also believe that _enforcing_ a stat difference between males and females is an unnecessary division of gender roles at the table. I maintain that it's an unnecessary constraint to force that additional template on someone who wishes to play the game. I will put it thus: "Playing Conan with  is between you and your DM; playing a sparkling, effeminate vampire is between me and mine." 



> In my  own game, to the extent that I do penalize men, it is exactly in this  way that I penalize them.  The optional trait, "Fairer Sex", gives you a  -4 penalty to STR and a +2 bonus on WIS and CHR.  It's not fully  realistic, but its close enough and it is my opinion interesting.



Do you also have any template for male characters? Putting aside that the combat aspect of the game is at least partially inherently geared more towards males. Now I'm pondering an "American Psycho" template for the next time one of my players wants to run a serial killer. (We've had 1 murderous femme fatale PC for whom this would have also worked.) Maybe a -4 Wis, +2 Str, and... After that, I lose the trail. Maybe some circumstantial bonuses or a custom feat in place of the stat bonus(es). I would call it "Chainsaw Massacre."



> Of course, it may mean that to play a particular optimal build you may  have to play a character of a particular gender, but you are comfortable  with that right?   I mean, I'm the DM, I have to do it all the time.



I do not agree with the notion that a player must be willing to play a male (or female) character to excel at a certain role because of quantified statistical differences. I do believe that most people impose these stat differences on themselves, sometimes unthinkingly, during character generation--but that is a choice. (And as you can see, power of choice is pretty high on my list of qualities for a game.) I also do not think that players need to be equally comfortable playing the opposite sex or other sexual orientations. It's not on my list of needful things. I only require them to be respectful and tolerant of other players and to not let me catch them cheating at rolls.



> In my experience, women tend to self-select out of any profession that  requires them to be alone and involved in a lot of tedious emotionally  unrewarding work.   So at least entertain the possibility that being a  high level theoretical mathemetician favors among other things having a  lower than normal wisdom, just because the quality of life you sacrifice  for the joy of solving an equation is probably pretty high.



I'm finishing a grad degree in accounting; I enjoy working alone on tedious issues... That enhances my quality of life. The less time I have to listen to a suit yammering about "leverage" and "synergies," the happier I am. My mileage here is to say nothing of my friends' peculiarities, but that would be a biased sample. I don't disagree with the notion that there is something off about career mathematicians, physicists, and engineers... But it may not truly be gender-defined. Only time will tell.



> The emphasis on stat minutia is not an emphasis on role playing, and suggests totally different motives and goals of play.



Precisely. Also, that was the only non-rhetorical question. 

The Wis and Cha issues were tongue-in-cheek. I should be more explicit.


For the record, I tend to play mostly male PCs on balance, but the 3 PCs I've most intensely enjoyed playing were all female. No healer types among them; two were melee tanks, one a serious damage dealer, and one what passed for a theoretical mathematician in that world. I've never tracked my NPC gender balance as a DM. I do enjoy exploring gender themes as a player, but rarely follow that trail as a DM (my players are usually dominantly female, but the characters are 50/50).


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## JamesonCourage (May 10, 2011)

A toddler with fully developed adult muscles. A more apt comparison might be to people with an acute case of dwarfism.

Also, if your D&D campaign assumes a 10 for average human Strength, then the average human can carry up to 33 lb. and remain in a light load. The average halfling (Strength of 8) would carry up to 19.5 lb. and remain in a light load. That's a little under 60% of the carrying capacity of a human.

A human with an 8 Strength could carry up to 26 lb. as a light load. That's about 79% the carry capacity of the average human.

In terms of attacks and damage, that 2 Strength equates to one modifier, so a -1 penalty to attacks and damage (unless you're using a 2h weapon, in which case it might be 2 damage). A -1 penalty on Strength-based skills (Climb, Jump, and Swim). It also gives you a -1 penalty at breaking ropes through pure strength, kicking in doors, etc. All told, not too much, though obviously important for Strength-based characters.

If you compare high-Strength characters (natural 18), the light load carry capacity for an 18 is 100 lb. For a 16, it's 76 lb. (only 76%). So, that 2 stat means a little more than the difference between an 10 and an 8 (24% difference as compared to a 21% difference), but the rest of the modifiers remain the same (-1 attack, -1/-2 damage, -1 on Str skills, -1 on Str checks). Not a huge deal, but, again, important to Strength-based characters.

Does it seem bad to implement something like a Strength difference? Not inherently. Can I see objections to it? Obviously. Would I prefer some sort of mechanical bonus to offset the penalty? Yes. Do I implement gender differences in my game (that I created)? I do not.

I can see both sides. I don't think you have to be sexist to think about this, but I understand why it's a touchy topic. It'd be even more so if people talked about racial bonuses penalties based on skin color of the human character.

It's an interesting discussion though. Keep playing what you like


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## ThirdWizard (May 10, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> A toddler with fully developed adult muscles. A more apt comparison might be to people with an acute case of dwarfism.




That's just crazy. In 4e dwarves get a Strength bonus!


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

S'mon said:


> The man is still much stronger than the woman in absolute terms, though.  D&D STR is not "strength divided by weight", it's just strength.




That is correct. Which means that in D&D terms, men and women should be closer in STR. D&D does measure strength divided by weight, but usually only at the level of detail of whole creature Sizes. If you give men a half-Size level (Somewhat Powerful Build?) and applied it to lifting strength, you get the +2 modifier I suggested earlier in the thread.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> LOL.  So long as you are going to try to play psychologist with me, I might as well say that I'm arrogant enough to think it is far beyond your power to oppress me intellectually or rhetorically.  I can hold my own quite well, thanks nothing for your [false] concern.




I'm glad you don't feel oppressed.



> And with that statement, you follow up with a long post where you walk away from that claim as fast as you can go, until within just a few sentences you've rationalized all the way to:




No, I don't back away from that claim. I don't quite understand why you're having so much trouble understanding what I'm trying to say, but I'm trying to be patient.



> Right, so everyone agrees men are stronger, just not so much stronger that it could be quantified as even a single point of difference.




No. Stop. Strawman. I said everyone agrees men are stronger. It is _my_ assertion that it's difficult to justify an entire point of difference, much less more than that. That is what is being debated.

Do you have anything other than lifting figures, and feats that in D&D are not based on Strength, to go by? +1 to Strength means +1 to _everything_. That's a pretty steep claim. If you say +2, you're saying women are to men as the average male human is to Bilbo Baggins. 



> Once again, if you don't really care about this subject, why are you bothering to post?




I do care about discussing gender differences in general. I don't care to hear you continue to beat the dead unicorn. No one has claimed there is no difference. If you want to claim there is a large difference, you have to present some kind of credible evidence. And power lifting figures alone are simply not sufficient.

Carrying capacity in D&D is normalized for weight. Eg. Ogres and halflings. Further, power lifters are not necessarily good at swinging swords. That is a different activity. Very high numbers in hyperspecialized tasks alone is not going to cut it.



> The first page or so of this thread had four or five posts with people jumping on the OP with veiled or open accusations that the whole idea was sexist and/or that anyone who held such ideas was probably racist.




I don't really think so. I think you are reading a personal attack on your attitudes where there is none. There is simply disagreement that gender differences are + worthy in most statistics in most RPGs. The fact that some people insist that they are is indicative that their prejudices may be coloring their abiliity to look at the facts, but that does not mean you personally are being called out, or if you are, that you are a sexist.



> And, in that, you think I'm worried about being oppressed?  I'm defending an idea I don't even implement in my own house rules, and you think I'm playing some sort of victim card?  This is just another bit of, "If someone disagrees with me, it must be because there is something emotionally wrong with them."  You aren't content to challenge me on anything of substance, instead you start up with a passive aggressive ad hominem attack and follow up with a bunch of logical fallacies.  I don't have to quibble with your strawmen.  I have already tried to answer one of your rhetorical questions as if you were honestly making it.  If you aren't going to listen then, there is no reason to think you'd listen now.




I was responding to your comment that you felt stifled in expressing your opinions. Perhaps I misunderstood and you can clarify. You are the one who asked for social cover from criticism; this discussion is well within my comfort zone in scope. However, I have little patience for people who argue from behind a duck blind.

"I'm not allowed to express my opinions, which I am expressing now," is dirty pool. "People who believe in male superiority are oppressed," is just privileged garbage. Men do suffer from some discrimination, but the idea that men are the disadvantaged class in this discussion is lunacy.



> So let's be honest here so that my time is worth it.  Is there any evidence I could possibly present that would cause you reassess your repeatedly stated belief that the real life physical differences cannot be quantified as even a single point of difference in strength?  Because if that's your faith based conviction, we shouldn't bother discussing it.




I'll be honest, the first thing I thought when I read this paragraph was, "What is the thing I can say that will most likely guarantee he will actually not bother discussing it further?"


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> One thing that this thread has brought me to realize is just how fair and reasonable the original 1e D&D implementation of gender differences was.




Ah, the good old days.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Constitution is usually most obviously important for making one resistant to physical trauma, an area that is more usually related to size and cross sectional area of bones, and which really doesn't give one much ability to live a long healthy life.   In fact, the idea of giving women a Constitution bonus is interesting because there are many areas where it makes sense.  Women do tend to do better at pain tolerance, endurance, famine resistance, and longevity.   But the problem is that normally Constitution implicitly or explicitly bundles thoughs things together with being a big hefty beefcake as if they were secondary attributes of being stout.   In fact, they aren't and a scrawny looking women is more likely to excell at feats of endurance than a 300lb NFL linemen, even as the linemen is far less likely to suffer broken bones after a bone jarring hit.  So the basic problem here is that D&D - and practically every other RPG you can name - doesn't consider it important to distinguish between the two.




Substitute "Strength" for "Constitution" and different examples for the different tasks, and you will get closer to understanding my objection to large modifiers on D&D strength.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

Banshee16 said:


> Has this actually been proven?  My understanding is that the world records for men and women *are* significantly different.....the top men lifting about 45% more than the top women.




The difference is statistically significant, but what about the effect size? What happens if we compare the top 10% of women to the 50th percentile of men, for instance? 



> It stands to reason....in the absence of extreme training, I believe men have a much higher percentage of muscle tissue.




That's because women have breasts and butts. I.e. fat. That is one reason why they survive famines better (even giving birth in scenarios where men are dropping like flies). Relative to body weight, men do have more muscle tissue than women, but muscle as a percentage of overall body weight is the wrong measurement to look at.


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## Celebrim (May 10, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I'll be honest, the first thing I thought when I read this paragraph was, "What is the thing I can say that will most likely guarantee he will actually not bother discussing it further?"




I guess that's a 'No' then.



> No. Stop. Strawman. I said everyone agrees men are stronger. It is _my_ assertion that it's difficult to justify an entire point of difference, much less more than that.




Strawman?  You are the one who refuses to offer a definition of strength that would allow your position to be assailed.  I know exactly what you are trying to say because I've presented evidence against it like three times now.  You are trying to say that while everyone agrees that men are somewhat more able to lift and carry things than women, that that is not real strength but merely a small and perhaps neglible bonus to lifting capacity.   But when anyone questions you about what 'real strength' is, you can provide no evidence for your assertion.

This is what I see.  You have to concede lifting strength because its easily measured, even though you try to handwave even that away with comments about relative size as if that hasn't already been addressed.  

But the more difficult it is to measure the strength, the more likely you are to suggest that no difference exists in that more intangible area.   For example, punching power is notoriously hard to measure well, so you argue at several points that punching power between the two sexes is similar.   But in fact, because the primary difference between the two sexes in terms of strength is that testosterone encourages the growth of 'fast muscle' so that men possess proportionally more dynamic power (the difficult to measure kind) than than they do static power (from slow muscle) compared to women.   If anything, lifting power as a function of size is one of the areas women are most closely comparable to men than things like punching power.

When challenged on that I produced a long list of strength related areas where men excell women by large margins.  These include swimming (strength based skill), jumping (strength based skill), sprint speed, and punching power (damage bonus from strength).  There are very little other areas of the game that are impacted by strength.  What haven't I covered?



> +1 to Strength means +1 to everything.




No, +1 to Strength means +1/2 to everything.  It means virtually no difference between the two in outcome.   If the difference was only +1 we'd expect differences in outcome of less than 5%.   Instead we see differences in outcome of at least 10-15% which suggests +2 or +3 bonuses.   But a +2 or +3 bonus suggests not +2 or +3 to strength, but +4 or +6.   

When I brought outcomes in jumping, swimming, and the like previously you responded as you did with lifting capacity.  "Well, perhaps men have a +2 bonus to jumps."

But if men have a +2 bonus on jumps, and +2 bonus on swimming, and a +4 bonus to lifting capacity and so on and so on, what's going to be left to justify not just making it a large bonus to strength?



> That's a pretty steep claim. If you say +2, you're saying women are to men as the average male human is to Bilbo Baggins.




No, I'm saying that if we believe Bilbo Baggins has only a -2 strength penalty, then women are to men as less than male humans are to halflings (and by implication, halflings must have musculatures more similar to chimpanzees than humans... which would go a long way toward explaining their fear of water).   That's not a 'pretty steep claim'.   Given the large differences in outcome we observe anything less than that is an unreasonable claim.



> No one has claimed there is no difference. If you want to claim there is a large difference, you have to present some kind of credible evidence. And power lifting figures alone are simply not sufficient.




I have nor have I confined myself to power lifting figures.   You have produced nothing credible to assert that there isn't a large difference. 



> The difference is statistically significant, but what about the effect size?




Already covered.  Even when adjusting for size, the difference remains statistically large.



> What happens if we compare the top 10% of women to the 50th percentile of men, for instance?




Then you get back to a Billie Jean King comparison.   It's no more relevant than asking what happens if we compare the top 10% of men to the 50th percentile of women.   The only fair comparison is to compare the 50th percentile of men to the 50th percentile of women, or the 25th percentile of men to the 25th percentile of women, or the top 1% of men to the top 1% of women.   We are trying to establish whether men are stronger than women in general, something you assert 'no one contests', but you keep contesting it.  

The most essential problem with your claim that there is at most a +1 Strength difference between the two sexes (and you've two or three times argued that even this is questionable), is if the difference was that small we'd see much closer to parity between the sexes in competitions that emphasized physical strength.   There is often a much more than +1 strength difference between two highly competitive boxers or two highly competitive NFL football players.  If the difference was only as small as +1 Strength, you'd strongly expect to find that while the best NFL linebacker out there was probably a man, there would be at least one NFL team with a fearsome women as an outside linebacker, and while the cruiser weight boxing champion was likely a man that maybe 10% of the sport was females competing on equal terms with the men.  But you don't see that in real life.   This suggests the differences are much closer to 'huge' than 'trivial', and the list of measurable outcomes supports that.   Its only by assuming that the difference is large that not only is the best female linebacker in the country not playing for the NFL, but that she can't earn a spot amongst any of the best 50,000 or so linebackers playing at the high school level.



> I was responding to your comment that you felt stifled in expressing your opinions.




I made no such comment.  So who is really playing 'dirty pool' here.


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## WizarDru (May 10, 2011)

Interesting.  I think that there are several different points being addressed here, some of which may be at cross-purposes.  Potentially confusing the discussion is the mingling of two separate notions as being the same one; at least, that's how it appears to me.

The first notion is that of actual, real-world biology.  I think we can agree, by and large, that evolution has granted men a physical advantage in strength.  This is not to imply that women can't be strong nor that man can't be weak.  Merely that, all environmental factors being equal, men have a greater mass and greater capacity for physical strength/muscle-mass/what-have-you.  Determining the ranges for each sex and the means isn't terribly relevant to me.

The second notion is that the game should reflect: 

Reailty
Genre Fiction
Movies
Personal Anecdotal Experience

This has little connection, generally, to the first point...unless you're solely concerned with the first item AND you are determined to make sure that it applies to the dynamics of your individual group of adventurers.  That is to say that you're concerned that if there are two fighters in the group, it's clear that the male fighter should have the advantage in strength if he so chooses, since he's male and that's a factor you feel the game should reflect.

My general feeling has always been that the characters in a game are exceptional.  They are Big Damn Heroes and neither the mean nor reality reflects their makeup.  Female characters are no more penalized for their sex than their sexual orientation (unless it's a story point and one that the player is comfortable with).  We are playing a GAME.  To me, this means that there's no reason to penalize a particular character choice: I want my wife, my friend's wife, my friend's girlfriend, my wife's friend or that girl we've known since college to ALL enjoy themselves and not worry about an implied penalty based on the sex of their character.  And since I have male players who have played female characters, it's even doubly true that I don't want to enforce penalties that offer no benefit back to us as a group.  Some groups may find some enjoyment from these rules....I have never played with one of those groups, though.

My wife wants to play a hero who wields a mighty hammer.  She is the chosen of a diety.  She wears armor forged by the ancients.  She wears a necklace fashioned from powerful magics.  She has a blood legacy that connects her to the ancient spirits of a mystical castle.  She lives in a fantastic medieval European-based society that is almost totally egalitarian.  I don't really see why allowing her to have the same strength as any male character is any more of a stretch than that, honestly.

The question also arises as a follow-on: why doesn't it bother you that such things apply to elves and dragonborn and so forth?  Well, you know.  There simply isn't the same equivalence, in my book.  Psychologically, there is a very real difference between a female player choosing a female character and being told that she will never be able to be as a good a character at class 'X' and telling a female player that her walking, talking dragonwoman is slower but tougher than that elf over there.  We players live in a world where Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering fission, but Lisa Meitner was not.    The level of abstraction between playing a half-stone giant and playing a different human female are sizable and gender-based modifiers carry with them social implications that fantastic races do not.

My thinking has been that such arbitrary assignments gain you little in terms of actual play rewards, but carry with them the potential for exclusion, perceived insult and unneeded debate.  I'm sure there are some groups that don't mind this or even encourage it.  To them I say "more power to you".  But I've also note that I've had a non-zero number of female players who found the notion distasteful or misogynistic and a zero number of male players who felt it was something they cared about it.  That made the decision an easy one to make.  Given that I've had female players in my gaming circles constantly since the early 1980s, I haven't found a reason to change that policy.  YMMV.


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## Darwinism (May 10, 2011)

S'mon said:


> The man is still much stronger than the woman in absolute terms, though.  D&D STR is not "strength divided by weight", it's just strength.




D&D strength is not 'just' strength; like the other stats it's a crazy amalgamation of concepts are linked to a single stat even though if you're going for ~realism~ there's no way you should accept that.

And proportionate strength matters plenty. Or are you going to argue that dwarves should be penalized, too? They're smaller than humans. Size is what really matters, right? And, because of that, everyone who's larger than humans should have strength bonuses that are in line with the penalty you give a woman for being slightly smaller than a man.

I'd really like to know who you think would be more effective in combat, too. The one who can barely move due to overdeveloped muscles or the one who can move freely.  The point here is that pure physical mass doesn't mean better. There's a definite point at which becoming 'stronger' actually makes you worse at anything but picking  up.

Basically D&D strength is just an arbitrary abstraction to inform you how awesome your character is. Like the other stats.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Strawman?  You are the one who refuses to offer a definition of strength that would allow your position to be assailed.




Actually, I have offered a pretty clear definition. I want to see as many meausres as possible that relate to the things D&D Strength actually does. You have provided three credible measures: power lifting, swimming, and running long jumps. As the running long jumps also includes stride, which D&D acknowledges to an extent, it is suspect, although it remains still useful. You've given about 2 1/2 dimensions out of a very wide-ranging ability score. Now, there are big reasons to be suspicious of those self-selecting samples, though at worst we can adventurers may self-select in the same way, but at least it's something.

But it's not enough.



> I know exactly what you are trying to say because I've presented evidence against it like three times now.  You are trying to say that while everyone agrees that men are somewhat more able to lift and carry things than women, that that is not real strength but merely a small and perhaps neglible bonus to lifting capacity.   But when anyone questions you about what 'real strength' is, you can provide no evidence for your assertion.




All the things D&D Strength does. Lifting, jumping, climing, swimming, grappling, punching, kicking, breaking objects, striking telling blows, qualifying for feats, etc. 



> This is what I see.  You have to concede lifting strength because its easily measured, even though you try to handwave even that away with comments about relative size as if that hasn't already been addressed.




Relative size has been addressed; you seem to think that it was addressed in favor of your arguments but I it seems clear to me that the rules tilt toward assuming carrying capacity includes size as well as strength. Unless you want to assume that feat from the Planar Handbook doubles a character's real world strength in every way, of course.



> But the more difficult it is to measure the strength, the more likely you are to suggest that no difference exists in that more intangible area.   For example, punching power is notoriously hard to measure well, so you argue at several points that punching power between the two sexes is similar.




It's not a question of tangible versus intangible. It's a question of performance at actual tasks versus performance on _tests_. The more muscle groups are involved, the more it looks like a D&D Strength check.

Also, I said punching was more similar, not that it was "similar," in every way you choose to define similar. I thought it was far more important to look at kicking power, at which men and women are very similar. If you penalize women for punching power at X rate, you punish their kicking to the same degree, which is wildly inaccurate.



> But in fact, because the primary difference between the two sexes in terms of strength is that testosterone encourages the growth of 'fast muscle' so that men possess proportionally more dynamic power (the difficult to measure kind) than than they do static power (from slow muscle) compared to women.   If anything, lifting power as a function of size is one of the areas women are most closely comparable to men than things like punching power.




Men's muscles are structurally different, yes. But it is not a given that fiber-dense fast muscle translates into a linear increase in dynamic power. Dynamic power depends greatly on motor coordination, which in turn depends hugely on practice and development. 



> When challenged on that I produced a long list of strength related areas where men excell women by large margins.  These include swimming (strength based skill), jumping (strength based skill), sprint speed, and punching power (damage bonus from strength).  There are very little other areas of the game that are impacted by strength.  What haven't I covered?




You didn't cover my objections to the punching power metric you used (very different comparison groups). You didn't cover kicking power or climbing. You didn't cover any measures at which average man and average men are benchmarked. You also didn't cover (unless I missed it) high jump and throwing (although those two measures favor men). 

You also didn't cover _anything_ that wasn't an athletic contest. If you really want to know how people perform at tasks, you need to look at real world outcomes. Outside of the high school to semi pro professional culture, outside athletic events that focus on a very specific muscle movement, outside very controlled tasks. You need to look at actual things done by actual people and asks, "Are men so much better at this that I would be concerned about a woman doing this job?"

Are women worse lifeguards? Are they worse at putting drunks in arm locks? as far as I know, women are not worse at either of those things.

Hence, it makes more sense to set a similar level of Strength, and assume bonus to those tasks at which men typically excel. Give men a +1, or +2, or whatever to Climb, Jump, and Swim checks, if you want. But I think it's very questionable to posit a large difference in such an abstract measure as Strength.



> No, +1 to Strength means +1/2 to everything.




It means +1 Strength to all tasks at which Strength applies. It means +1/2 bonus. So your "no" is an equivocation. 



> It means virtually no difference between the two in outcome.   If the difference was only +1 we'd expect differences in outcome of less than 5%.   Instead we see differences in outcome of at least 10-15% which suggests +2 or +3 bonuses.   But a +2 or +3 bonus suggests not +2 or +3 to strength, but +4 or +6.




It's much easier to simply give men the equivalent of the Athletic feat.



> When I brought outcomes in jumping, swimming, and the like previously you responded as you did with lifting capacity.  "Well, perhaps men have a +2 bonus to jumps."
> 
> But if men have a +2 bonus on jumps, and +2 bonus on swimming, and a +4 bonus to lifting capacity and so on and so on, what's going to be left to justify not just making it a large bonus to strength?




Because adventurers are fairly likely to kick, or to wrestle in a non-sports context. Because women can open jars just fine.



> I have nor have I confined myself to power lifting figures.   You have produced nothing credible to assert that there isn't a large difference.




See, that's the thing. It's yours to prove there is a large difference. 



> Then you get back to a Billie Jean King comparison.   It's no more relevant than asking what happens if we compare the top 10% of men to the 50th percentile of women.




It is relevant if women warriors constitute the top 10% of women in strength, and warriors represent barely more than the median in an agrarian-based feudal economy. Then it is the most relevant thing I can possibly imagine.



> The most essential problem with your claim that there is at most a +1 Strength difference between the two sexes (and you've two or three times argued that even this is questionable), is if the difference was that small we'd see much closer to parity between the sexes in competitions that emphasized physical strength.




Why would see that? Wouldn't we see even the most minor differences mangified by self-selection?



> There is often a much more than +1 strength difference between two highly competitive boxers or two highly competitive NFL football players.




I question your assertion.



> If the difference was only as small as +1 Strength, you'd strongly expect to find that while the best NFL linebacker out there was probably a man, there would be at least one NFL team with a fearsome women as an outside linebacker, and while the cruiser weight boxing champion was likely a man that maybe 10% of the sport was females competing on equal terms with the men.




Football players are big, not strong. I would consider football players better candidates for improved stability in humans than high Strength characters. They are built to maximize running and slamming power; even if the selection process were somehow made sex-fair, a small advantage in each would translate into a huge advantage in the composite.

Just as in parallel bars, women's advantages in smaller size and greater flexibility, when combined, become an unassailable advantage in gynmastics. Yet I'm not going to claim women should have a +2 relative Dex based on that measure.



> But you don't see that in real life.   This suggests the differences are much closer to 'huge' than 'trivial', and the list of measurable outcomes supports that.   Its only by assuming that the difference is large that not only is the best female linebacker in the country not playing for the NFL, but that she can't earn a spot amongst any of the best 50,000 or so linebackers playing at the high school level.




So you are saying there are no, zero, other reasons female linebackers aren't currently represented?

Here's the bottom line for me: If Joe has a 16 Strength and Jenny has a 14, that implies that in Joe's hands, a shortsword does as much damage as a longsword does in Jenny's. That is a pretty strong claim. I think it completely flies in the face of what you said about boxers, above; I think it would be extraordinary rare for a boxer to do +1 relative damage to other top-level boxers in his own class.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 10, 2011)

Darwinism said:


> I'd really like to know who you think would be more effective in combat, too. The one who can barely move due to overdeveloped muscles or the one who can move freely. The point here is that pure physical mass doesn't mean better. There's a definite point at which becoming 'stronger' actually makes you worse at anything but picking  up.




I think you are doing your own, otherwise excellent, point a disservice with that paragraph. It is true that there is a point at which muscle mass equates to more weight and less flexibility, but this point is very high compared to the range. Melee combat is wits, speed, accuracy--and if it goes on for a bit, endurance. Speed is directly related to muscle mass, and also relates to the power delivered. Past a certain point, speed complicates technique when defending against, too. 

In melee combat, in reality, women suffer an incredible speed penalty compared to men, on average. This penalty will be most felt when the combatants are at their peak physical conditioning. As they age, the men will lose some of this edge (though it will always be an edge), and will have to compensate with better technique, as the women have already been doing. Of course, some men will know this, and will have already sought every edge to use against men with comparable speed. 

If highly developed muscles is a flaw, it is psychological for the male more than some physical demerit due to overdevelopment. I don't have any trouble believing that many males could rely on their muscles too much and/or shirk technique development thinking that it was unnecessary. And the "macho" attitude has led to many famous last words. 

I know a lady pushing sixty who fences epee, and sometimes fences "A-level" male fencers in their 20s. (That is, male fencers in their prime, with skill levels just shy of Olypmic contention.) She has medaled in the world championship in her age bracket. Frequently, good male fencers do things so fast that she can't even see the move, and she has been fencing 40 years. OTOH, when they take her lightly, she can negate that speed, and it drives them nuts, often resulting in them losing several touches before they get it together.

If she had a 25 year old males' muscles with her skill, she'd be an unstoppable machine. There is a big stink in international fencing right now because a transgendered female (if that is how you say it--now female, formerly male) is competing with just such an advantage in muscle mass.

An no, fencing is not life and death melee. It is *far* more advantageous to women than real melee combat would be. You aren't allowed to shield smash someone in fencing, which would be practically brute power. 

I would say that a great deal of the edge that women possess in any such life or death physical contest will often boil down to having effectively been through harder training due to physical limitations, being underestimated at times, and any psychological edge such provides.

But it is all still dwarfed massively by skill and muscle development directly related to gaining/practicing that skill.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

A disclosure: I have some skin in the game.

For years, I have participated in a boffer combat LARP (that is, using foam-padded swords). There is a large participation gap between men and women. And when women do compete, they do not always do well. A friend of mine wrote an essay once on how women have been taugh their whole lives that they do not have, and should not exert, power, and that to strike at someone runs counter to a lifetime of social conditioning. So many "girl fighters" are hesitent, and lack power. But I have observed time and again that if you can spend some time with those fighters, to teach them to strike without hesitation, to have confidence in their bodies, and to focus on movement more than winning, they become better. Sometimes you can see the difference in weeks, ... other times in hours! The next thing you know, the "girl fighter" is a woman fighting on-level with men, many of whom are larger. Despite their large undererepresentation in the group as a whole, they are overrepresented at the higher levels of ability. 

My point is that these women underperform because they have been told their whole lives that they cannot perform. And that is simply a lie. And so while it is true that men are larger and stronger, to emphasize that fact, in a culture in which men and women receive daily reminders of that, a lie flies under the flag of factuality. Real people in their real lives will be affected by some random dude on the Internet reminding women, "By the way, in case you had forgotten, your entire culture considers you frail and weak, and I will choose some unfair measures to prove this to you."

Psychologically, whether intended or not, the repeated reminder of men's greater size and power serves as a reminder of men's superiority; every time a man reminds a woman that she must be protected, or tells her she can't beat a man, she is being subtly threatened by male violence in the abstract. 

I don't think it's justifiable harming the souls of women because physically, culturally, historically, men can long-jump a greater distance than a woman. I think it is a good and wonderful thing for a human being to do to remind people that an untrained, average woman fended off a mountain lion for hour hours with her bare hands, dying in order to protect her children. If what D&D calls Strength is anything, it's that.


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## S'mon (May 10, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> But the problem is that normally Constitution implicitly or explicitly bundles thoughs things together with being a big hefty beefcake as if they were secondary attributes of being stout.   In fact, they aren't and a scrawny looking women is more likely to excell at feats of endurance than a 300lb NFL linemen, even as the linemen is far less likely to suffer broken bones after a bone jarring hit.  So the basic problem here is that D&D - and practically every other RPG you can name - doesn't consider it important to distinguish between the two.
> 
> It's not realistic, and what it does is force you to play by rules and for goals where men excel.   There is a built in male bias to the game systems and what they concentrate on simulating - usually physical combat, usually melee combat at that.   Consider for example the details usually lavished on grappling.
> 
> Because of this built in male bias, I to tend to avoid enforcing stat based differences between the genders.




I agree, and this is a good point - actually two good points:

1.  D&D Constitution conflates endurance, where female physiology has an advantage, with damage resistance, where male physiology has an advantage.  I remember in army basic training, the sergeant commented that female recruits suffered broken bones much more often in training, due to their having less muscle protecting their bones.  Yet women can make great combat snipers because they can sit waiting in freezing poo-filled holes in the ground for days, better than men can.

2. D&D and other RPGs' Attributes are designed to model male strengths, not female strengths.  This means that a simulationist approach to stats will give female PCs a bunch of penalties, no fun for the player.


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## JamesonCourage (May 10, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> It's much easier to simply give men the equivalent of the Athletic feat.




You know, if you did this, and gave women a free feat, I doubt people would complain about differences in gender. Give men something like the Athletic feat, and give women something the Negotiator feat (Diplomacy / Sense Motive), or Endurance. Both free feats, based on the gender you choose at character creation. You can always spend a feat to pick up the other one.

Out of curiosity, compared to statistical differences, how many people would object to this?



> Because women can open jars just fine.




I wish they were around when the damn jalapenos jar wouldn't open recently.



> It is relevant if women warriors constitute the top 10% of women in strength, and warriors represent barely more than the median in an agrarian-based feudal economy. Then it is the most relevant thing I can possibly imagine.




Actually, I think you'd have to compare it to the other male PC equivalent. I mean, suppose there's a rule in place that gives women a -2 to Strength. If both a female and a male warrior were rolled up, and they both had a natural 18 in Strength, the female would have a 16, and the male would have an 18.

Now, compare those two warriors to the slightly above average strength NPCs in this scenario (I'm guessing it's around 12? 13?). I think that's the comparison that should be at play.

I'm not saying that I think the penalty is just or unjust, I'm merely saying that I think the comparison should be amongst PCs. Just my two cents.



pawsplay said:


> Psychologically, whether intended or not, the repeated reminder of men's greater size and power serves as a reminder of men's superiority; every time a man reminds a woman that she must be protected, or tells her she can't beat a man, she is being subtly threatened by male violence in the abstract.




Let me begin by saying that I definitely respect your opinion and feelings in this matter. I'm not intending to discount what you say by my response.

However, I just cannot reconcile that a mentally healthy person would feel violently threatened (even abstractly) by a man when he boasts, much less during an honest discussion on the matter of physical capabilities. I mean, maybe if a man were to attempt to intimidate her, I'd understand. I'm sure if Brock Lesnar walked up to me and tried to physically intimidate me, I'd feel threatened (I don't care what certain people think, the man is a beast).

I just don't see how someone mentally healthy, with a high respect for oneself, would feel threatened by male posturing (again, much less honest discussion). I know I don't feel threatened by other people when they boast about their strengths. In fact, my friends regularly try to prove me wrong, often actively pushing when they perceived I've made a mistake. Maybe it's because I'm combative when them in dialogue (much more so than on this board!), and they want to one-up me? I don't know.

Perhaps that's what you were going for in your post (that I admittedly only drew parts from, seeing as my own post was already so long)? That women have low self respect in this area because of male oppression? Even if that is the case, I don't see how people have an honest discussion about comparative strength between the sexes could really logically feel violently threatened, even abstractly, by the men in those discussions.

But, feelings are not logical, I suppose. Which is, usually, a pretty refreshing thing about them, past a certain point in my life. At any rate, I'm not sure where I'm heading with this. I'm just honestly trying to understand. I suppose that's why I like role playing, to some degree. Let's me get in there, and feel closer to these things I wouldn't normally empathize with (they usually don't come up... don't judge me!).

So... yeah. Um. Play what you like


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## Elf Witch (May 10, 2011)

I am having a case of Deja Vu. Over the years I have read and had this topic in real life many times. The examples of male strength over female strength are always the same. 

In real life the strongest man will be stronger than the strongest female. But in a game that has magic and bringing dead adventures back to life it seems rather silly to cry it is not realistic.

I played back when the game first game out and sexism at the table was often a thing female gamers dealt with. As a matter of fact it was why I stopped playing DnD for 14 years.

Take the strength argument one DM I had put a strength cap of 12 on female characters. Which meant when I rolled a fantastic character that screamed paladin. I was told no sorry there is no way a female could ever be a paladin. If you want to play one you have to play a male.

I play fantasy games because I want to escape the real world for a little while. It is fun to be able to do things I will never do in real life. I think this is the reason a lot of guys play the game. One of my best friends has spinal bifida and has spent his life since he was 22 in a wheelchair. He loves to play burly warriors who kick butt and take names. He never likes to play a low strength character.

If you put minuses or caps on female characters do you do it just to humans or do you add it to all races of females. Is a female elf the same as a male elf? 

I don't see how it improves the game and makes it more playable to make gender stat differences.

Setting is different I played Pendragon and females are not supposed to be knights. How my DM handled it for my character was that I played a female masquerading as man so I could be a knight. It was a blast and I had a great time with it.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> I know a lady pushing sixty who fences epee, and sometimes fences "A-level" male fencers in their 20s. (That is, male fencers in their prime, with skill levels just shy of Olypmic contention.) She has medaled in the world championship in her age bracket. Frequently, good male fencers do things so fast that she can't even see the move, and she has been fencing 40 years. OTOH, when they take her lightly, she can negate that speed, and it drives them nuts, often resulting in them losing several touches before they get it together.
> 
> If she had a 25 year old males' muscles with her skill, she'd be an unstoppable machine.




The interesting thing about this example is that in D&D, initiative, AC, and attack rolls with a fencing weapon are all generally _Dex_-based.


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## S'mon (May 10, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> My point is that these women underperform because they have been told their whole lives that they cannot perform. And that is simply a lie. And so while it is true that men are larger and stronger, to emphasize that fact, in a culture in which men and women receive daily reminders of that, a lie flies under the flag of factuality. Real people in their real lives will be affected by some random dude on the Internet reminding women, "By the way, in case you had forgotten, your entire culture considers you frail and weak, and I will choose some unfair measures to prove this to you."
> 
> Psychologically, whether intended or not, the repeated reminder of men's greater size and power serves as a reminder of men's superiority; every time a man reminds a woman that she must be protected, or tells her she can't beat a man, she is being subtly threatened by male violence in the abstract.
> 
> I don't think it's justifiable harming the souls of women because physically, culturally, historically, men can long-jump a greater distance than a woman. I think it is a good and wonderful thing for a human being to do to remind people that an untrained, average woman fended off a mountain lion for hour hours with her bare hands, dying in order to protect her children. If what D&D calls Strength is anything, it's that.




I find this stuff really soul crushing.  It's like a dark veil over reality.

Women should be aware that both (a) it's often possible for women to successfully defend themselves against men and (b) most men are a lot stronger than most women.  There are techniques and tools that can get around (b), I remember having a chat with a female police officer about them one time we were out on patrol together.  Then we ran into a bunch of aggressive potheads with convictions for GBH against police - and she calmly talked to them and kept them docile, using her feminine strengths - unlike the aggressive male officer who turned up later and handled things much worse, I thought.  That ex-military female police officer could potentially have defended herself (and me, and her female support officer colleague) againsy attack, and would have done so if necessary, but she didn't want to have to try.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Actually, I think you'd have to compare it to the other male PC equivalent. I mean, suppose there's a rule in place that gives women a -2 to Strength. If both a female and a male warrior were rolled up, and they both had a natural 18 in Strength, the female would have a 16, and the male would have an 18.
> 
> Now, compare those two warriors to the slightly above average strength NPCs in this scenario (I'm guessing it's around 12? 13?). I think that's the comparison that should be at play.
> 
> I'm not saying that I think the penalty is just or unjust, I'm merely saying that I think the comparison should be amongst PCs. Just my two cents.




IMO, when you make that comparison, there absolutely should not be a difference. If the woman is more unusual for the sake of having an 18 Str, then she is more unusual. So be it. But I can't fathom how the game is made better by making the _player_ accept a 16 Strength in order to play the character. 

As I said before, there is a difference, just not as huge a difference, I believe, as some may imagine. The simple likelihood of choosing to make a strong male fighter compared to a female one probably outpaces, by an order of magnitude, any mechanical penalties you could put in place to create a similar shift in behavior. In other words, any norming of men versus women is probably not only handled, but exaggerated, by the process of character creation itself.



> However, I just cannot reconcile that a mentally healthy person would feel violently threatened (even abstractly) by a man when he boasts, much less during an honest discussion on the matter of physical capabilities.




It's something to work on. It's like the kid at the birthday party who keeps making a big deal about how their parents rented ponies for the party. Sure, they're not a bad kid; they probably don't even recognize how others will respond. But a mentally healthy individual can probably detect that this child's relationship with wealth is different than that of other children at the party. I think a mentally healthy person not only notices, but responds to, the sense that another person is trying to assert their superiority.

When the message is, "You are weaker than a man. A man would destroy you in physical combat," the question becomes, why is this message being broadcast? I understand the words. What is the significance?



> I mean, maybe if a man were to attempt to intimidate her, I'd understand. I'm sure if Brock Lesnar walked up to me and tried to physically intimidate me, I'd feel threatened (I don't care what certain people think, the man is a beast).




What if you lived in a world where a couple of times a week, Brock Lesnar wolf-whistled at you on the way home from work?



> I just don't see how someone mentally healthy, with a high respect for oneself, would feel threatened by male posturing (again, much less honest discussion).




As exhibits A and B, I present WWI and WWII.



> I know I don't feel threatened by other people when they boast about their strengths. In fact, my friends regularly try to prove me wrong, often actively pushing when they perceived I've made a mistake. Maybe it's because I'm combative when them in dialogue (much more so than on this board!), and they want to one-up me? I don't know.




Of course. Once you change the context, the meaning is different. We are talking about context.



> Perhaps that's what you were going for in your post (that I admittedly only drew parts from, seeing as my own post was already so long)? That women have low self respect in this area because of male oppression?




More to the point, even if they have high self-respect, they have a negative self-_concept_ because their daily reality requires them to battle negative stereotypes.



> Even if that is the case, I don't see how people have an honest discussion about comparative strength between the sexes could really logically feel violently threatened, even abstractly, by the men in those discussions.




How would you being a Mexican sitting in a room mostly full of white people, talking honestly and abstractly about the problem of illegal immigration? Would it make a difference if your mother had gotten her hands hit with a ruler when she was a child for speaking her native Spanish at school? 



> But, feelings are not logical, I suppose. Which is, usually, a pretty refreshing thing about them, past a certain point in my life. At any rate, I'm not sure where I'm heading with this. I'm just honestly trying to understand. I suppose that's why I like role playing, to some degree. Let's me get in there, and feel closer to these things I wouldn't normally empathize with (they usually don't come up... don't judge me!).
> 
> So... yeah. Um. Play what you like




It's a potentially very interesting and worthwhile journey. The first thing to realize is that many of the things that are most relevant to women, are invisible to men.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

Elf Witch said:


> Setting is different I played Pendragon and females are not supposed to be knights. How my DM handled it for my character was that I played a female masquerading as man so I could be a knight. It was a blast and I had a great time with it.




I believe it is also one of those games which has a SIZ stat, which helps a lot with delineating the physical differences of men and women.


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## RedTonic (May 10, 2011)

Not to knock Jameson's opinion, but on some level, I do find elements of male posturing to be threatening. It can make the females among you uncomfortable. It is a reminder of male on female violence, which is sadly prevalent in the real world and still remains a particular fixture of fantasy in occasionally unflattering ways which do no one credit. (Some episodes of _Supernatural_ comes to mind.) Still, we cope--we ignore it, we move on--but I find saying 'no harm done' a little difficult. The posturing gets my back up, personally, but I'm also paranoid and more than a little aggressive.

I don't believe anyone should necessarily change minor behaviors to avoid any offense, awkwardness, or discomfort--but I do think people should be _aware_, and moreover, I think people should place finding a _sympathetic_ understanding of others on par with _critical analysis_. Knowing, or trying to learn, where someone is coming from when they opine on a topic is at least as useful as skewering the holes in their argument.

But hey, maybe that's just the ovaries in me... I don't honestly think so, though. What I learned formally of sympathetic analysis, I learned from a man. Understanding others' positions helps you find common ground, and can help you bring them around to your position... Or may move you around to theirs. I believe most of us enjoy a certain level of harmony, trolls aside.

I play D&D to kick butt and take names (especially true names), not to be told that my female fighter will result in a suboptimal strength based build and that she'll never compare in a straight test of strength against a male fighter of equivalent level and resources. It's not the game I play. If others wish to play games that tinker with statistical templates for their characters, they may certain play those games. I don't get to make the call on who plays what games, nor do I wish to. (There's that noisome choice thing again.) I don't believe arguing about the relative physical strengths of men versus women is a worthy debate, either. It says little about either sex and more about the cognitive biases of those arguing. Hence, my opinion that RPGs shouldn't _enforce_ these matters in mechanics. Let the gamers decide. Do what's fun, but be fair to the players and the DM.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

So I polled my wife. I asked, "What do you think of the idea of giving men and women different ability scores in D&D?"

She said it didn't make much sense to her. She said that since you pick your Intelligence, Charisma, and so forth, you could simply pick a higher or lower Strength if you wanted.

I asked, "What about Strength specifically?"

She mentioned that she can pick up most of the same every day items that I do, and that she can carry two twenty pound children, one in each hand. She allowed that I could jump higher, but noted that she had been working on her jumping. 

I asked, "So what if women received a Strength penalty in D&D?"

She said, "That would suck. No one would play a girl. I don't think it should matter. People should get to play the character they want."

"Do you see any useful purpose at all at assessing a penalty on female characters?"

"No."


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## Crazy Jerome (May 10, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> More to the point, even if they have high self-respect, they have a negative self-_concept_ because their daily reality requires them to battle negative stereotypes.




See, I don't see that as the "honest discussion". That's the problem, not a real honest discussion.

Talking casually to other people about women's historical issues with mathematics in front of my daughter is a bad idea. After finding out that she is pretty darn good at it, but struggling with a few key things more than her brother? Now, a honest discussion is warranted. "Yeah, some of these things might be a little harder for you. But you can do it. And struggling with it might make you even better. You have other advantages."

My experience with young fencers mirrors your boffer experience. You just need to get people over the skill hump and build some confidence. The way to build confidence is to say, "Yeah, they are bigger and faster than you, but skill is more important. Develop the skill, and you can push those big guys around!" They love that. 

Minimizing differences too much is just as dishonest, for purposes of building real confidence, as maximizing them. Among other things, it discredits the teacher, because the student can see the differences with their own eyes. It is far more confidence building to say, "This difference is here, but it won't matter much if you don't let it." And then they get a little skill, and see that you are correct.

I've never met a good female fencer that thought the male size and speed wasn't an advantage. Part of their attitude is that the guy has an advantage--but they are still going to kick his butt. 

I think I've said this before. It is the old quote about Ginger Rodgers did everything Fred Astaire did--backwards and in high heels. In fact Rodgers did not do *everything* Astaire did. She could not have. What she did was hold up her end completely--excel--backwards and in high heels. Pretty darn impressive.

In a fantasy, cinematic game, the quote is accurate. Barbarian Jane does *everything* that Barbarian Joe does, despite any incidental impediments due her gender. In a more realistic version, Barbarian Jane has some not so incidental impediments, but it doesn't stop her from kicking as much butt as Barbarian Joe. She is just that good.


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## billd91 (May 10, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I believe it is also one of those games which has a SIZ stat, which helps a lot with delineating the physical differences of men and women.




Does Pendragon actually give women a SIZ penalty or men a SIZ bonus? Call of Cthulhu also has that stat being based on BRP as well, but I don't believe there's a gender difference there. Both get 2d6+6.


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## JamesonCourage (May 10, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> IMO, when you make that comparison, there absolutely should not be a difference. If the woman is more unusual for the sake of having an 18 Str, then she is more unusual. So be it. But I can't fathom how the game is made better by making the _player_ accept a 16 Strength in order to play the character.




I can see an argument for role playing or immersion. If something pulls you away from immersion, it lessens the enjoyment for some people.

The problem really becomes, then, that if you allow a 5'1" 110 lb. woman to have a Strength of 18, versus a 5'10" 180 lb. man with a Strength of 14. The woman is far superior to the male in terms of Strength, and her size means nothing in that. To some, that would hurt their ability to feel immersed, and thus role play well. However, if you impose some sort of penalty, woman (or men) may very well feel drawn out of the game, and not feel like they can be immersed.

It just depends. If you really want to look at what good can come from it, I think it's best to weigh all the pros and cons (and assign them appropriate values) and see what comes out on top for the type of game you're trying to make.



> As I said before, there is a difference, just not as huge a difference, I believe, as some may imagine. The simple likelihood of choosing to make a strong male fighter compared to a female one probably outpaces, by an order of magnitude, any mechanical penalties you could put in place to create a similar shift in behavior. In other words, any norming of men versus women is probably not only handled, but exaggerated, by the process of character creation itself.




That is currently the ongoing discussion. I'm not heavily invested in any debate, though, just understanding views in the thread.



> It's something to work on. It's like the kid at the birthday party who keeps making a big deal about how their parents rented ponies for the party. Sure, they're not a bad kid; they probably don't even recognize how others will respond. But a mentally healthy individual can probably detect that this child's relationship with wealth is different than that of other children at the party. I think a mentally healthy person not only notices, but responds to, the sense that another person is trying to assert their superiority.




I guess I don't feel threatened or belittled when people do this. I usually just find it humorous or I find them irritating. But, I'm not prone to tolerate posturing very well internally. I almost always challenge people that I think are posturing. Huge personal character flaw of mine. Best way to get me to do something? Tell me I suck at something, that I can't do it, etc. Seriously, this is a huge flaw in my personality.

I think that makes it harder for me to grasp related issues. That is regretful, because I like understanding other views 



> When the message is, "You are weaker than a man. A man would destroy you in physical combat," the question becomes, why is this message being broadcast? I understand the words. What is the significance?




To flaunt, usually. To show your superiority over someone else in that area. Now, I don't usually find the display threatening, unless someone is literally trying to threaten me physically. Mentally, I shrug that person off. Like I said, I guess it's hard for me to connect to opposing mindsets on this matter, which is actually really starting to bug me. It seems like the point should have clicked for me by now, and it hasn't. Thanks for your patience.

I guess why I brought it up at all was that you seemed to imply (I'm guessing I'm wrong here, though) that even this discussion would make women feel violently threatened in the abstract. This seemed off, to me, as this conversation has not seemed to be "we're men, we're bigger and better than females, ha ha" so far. 



> What if you lived in a world where a couple of times a week, Brock Lesnar wolf-whistled at you on the way home from work?




Well, since girls rarely whistle or shout to me based on my looks (if they do, it's because of the long hair, I'm guessing), I can only compare it to that. I take it as a compliment. I guess I wouldn't feel physically threatened unless they somehow imposed their physical superiority on me.

If Brock Lesnar kept moving in my path, not letting me by, while trying to stroke my hair... yeah, I'd feel nervous and threatened. If he wanted to talk to me about how he was stronger than I was? I'd say I could do that pretty reasonably without feeling threatened.



> As exhibits A and B, I present WWI and WWII.




I'm trying to be reasonable, but I can't really take this too seriously. I know that's not much to go on, but I don't see this part of the conversation going anywhere, and I like the feedback so far, and don't want to mess up a good thing.



> Of course. Once you change the context, the meaning is different. We are talking about context.




True enough. I'll try to stay on your terms as much as possible. If I sway off those terms, or misrepresent them, forgive me. Just correct me.



> More to the point, even if they have high self-respect, they have a negative self-_concept_ because their daily reality requires them to battle negative stereotypes.




Okay, so I was on the right track.



> How would you being a Mexican sitting in a room mostly full of white people, talking honestly and abstractly about the problem of illegal immigration? Would it make a difference if your mother had gotten her hands hit with a ruler when she was a child for speaking her native Spanish at school?




That would be incredibly uncomfortable. I think it can be done reasonably and logically though, without feeling personally oppressed mentally or attacked. I can see how it'd be a very personal issue, though. Interesting comparison.



> It's a potentially very interesting and worthwhile journey. The first thing to realize is that many of the things that are most relevant to women, are invisible to men.




That's a starting place, I guess. As far as emotional awareness goes, I'm pretty keen. I have very good and close relationships with a few women. To be able to role play one accurately, however... beyond my hope, I think. It's why I'm kind of stingy on the female NPCs in my game. I really dislike misrepresenting any being, whether they're elves, dragons, or women.

Who knows, maybe this discussion will shed some insight on how I can improve those NPC interactions. I'm not too worried about interactions with the women I know in real life, since we're on very good terms, but any insight helps when it comes to empathizing (which is something I think a lot more people should try to do).

Thanks for the discussion thus far.



			
				RedTonic said:
			
		

> Not to knock Jameson's opinion, but on some level, I do find elements of male posturing to be threatening. It can make the females among you uncomfortable. It is a reminder of male on female violence, which is sadly prevalent in the real world and still remains a particular fixture of fantasy in occasionally unflattering ways which do no one credit. (Some episodes of Supernatural comes to mind.) Still, we cope--we ignore it, we move on--but I find saying 'no harm done' a little difficult. The posturing gets my back up, personally, but I'm also paranoid and more than a little aggressive.




Oh, no worries on knocking my opinion. I can definitely handle disagreement, especially in areas I'm nowhere near an expert in. Thanks for your insight on this.



> I don't believe anyone should necessarily change minor behaviors to avoid any offense, awkwardness, or discomfort--but I do think people should be aware, and moreover, I think people should place finding a sympathetic understanding of others on par with critical analysis. Knowing, or trying to learn, where someone is coming from when they opine on a topic is at least as useful as skewering the holes in their argument.




I think empathy is extremely good for a person to pursue, but sympathy is a good start, too. I am trying to understand your side to this discussion.



> But hey, maybe that's just the ovaries in me... I don't honestly think so, though. What I learned formally of sympathetic analysis, I learned from a man. Understanding others' positions helps you find common ground, and can help you bring them around to your position... Or may move you around to theirs. I believe most of us enjoy a certain level of harmony, trolls aside.
> 
> I play D&D to kick butt and take names (especially true names), not to be told that my female fighter will result in a suboptimal strength based build and that she'll never compare in a straight test of strength against a male fighter of equivalent level and resources. It's not the game I play. If others wish to play games that tinker with statistical templates for their characters, they may certain play those games. I don't get to make the call on who plays what games, nor do I wish to. (There's that noisome choice thing again.) I don't believe arguing about the relative physical strengths of men versus women is a worthy debate, either. It says little about either sex and more about the cognitive biases of those arguing. Hence, my opinion that RPGs shouldn't enforce these matters in mechanics. Let the gamers decide. Do what's fun, but be fair to the players and the DM.




Well, I think it is a discussion (not argument) worth having, if those involved wanted to use it as a tool. I think it'd be very interesting to have a game with, say, two female players and two male players, where the females picked "realistic" adjustments for one sex, and the males did for the other. I think it'd say a lot in terms of perception of either your own sex or the other sex. Also, trying to make a character and role play that character under those restrictions would be interesting, too.

But, I agree, it's all preference. Don't play it (or try it) if you don't want to. I mean, I'll almost certainly never try the experiment above, but I think a healthy discussion on the topic can be enlightening. Just like role playing games can be. I think it shows us bits of pieces of our mind, or of the world in general, that we wouldn't think of without the game. And that's pretty invaluable.

As always, play what you like


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## billd91 (May 10, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I can see an argument for role playing or immersion. If something pulls you away from immersion, it lessens the enjoyment for some people.
> 
> The problem really becomes, then, that if you allow a 5'1" 110 lb. woman to have a Strength of 18, versus a 5'10" 180 lb. man with a Strength of 14. The woman is fall superior to the male in terms of Strength, and her size means nothing in that. To some, that would hurt their ability to feel immersed, and thus role play well. However, if you impose some sort of penalty, woman (or men) may very well feel drawn out of the game, and not feel like they can be immersed.




I don't really see the strength differences in this case as a problem. The players *chose* to put those stats in those places because they fit the PCs they want to play (or have rolled the stats to play). That will drive their conceptions stronger than picking/rolling a weight value that's off-kilter. I won't even get into the 16 strength 40 lb halfling that could come up in comparison to that male human example...

As a DM, I might encourage the woman PC's player to up the weight a little bit to reflect her strength and create a more believable PC, but ultimately, it's not going to be that big an issue.


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## Darwinism (May 10, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> I think you are doing your own, otherwise excellent, point a disservice with that paragraph. It is true that there is a point at which muscle mass equates to more weight and less flexibility, but this point is very high compared to the range. Melee combat is wits, speed, accuracy--and if it goes on for a bit, endurance. Speed is directly related to muscle mass, and also relates to the power delivered. Past a certain point, speed complicates technique when defending against, too.




Especially in anything resembling medieval combat there are diminishing returns to strength, and past an easy to reach point your own contribution to a weapon's speed is negligible. Doing a Hulk impression provides no tangible improvement except maybe you could throw more weight into a swing but also be far more open to any attack because you're incapable of recovering quickly.

That's the misconception I'm trying to point out; the idea of every man warrior ever having to look like He-Man is stupidly flawed. Ability scores are abstract definitions of how good your character is in some areas; just like charisma isn't how good you look, strength isn't how roided out you are. Trying to say that it is and then using that as justification for why wimmins shouldn't be fighting is pretty horrible.




Crazy Jerome said:


> In melee combat, in reality, women suffer an incredible speed penalty compared to men, on average. This penalty will be most felt when the combatants are at their peak physical conditioning. As they age, the men will lose some of this edge (though it will always be an edge), and will have to compensate with better technique, as the women have already been doing. Of course, some men will know this, and will have already sought every edge to use against men with comparable speed.




Sorry, no, the only 'incredible' penalty between women and men is that men, on average, have a longer reach. 'Speed' as a function of musculature doesn't scale like you seem to think that it does; at a certain very easy to reach point you will be moving your limbs as fast as muscles can make them move. Adding a few more pounds of muscle isn't going to make you faster or you'd see a hell of a lot more roided up fencers. But in modern fencing, which doesn't resemble actual combat in the slightest, reach is a pretty big advantage.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 10, 2011)

Elf Witch said:


> I played back when the game first game out and sexism at the table was often a thing female gamers dealt with. As a matter of fact it was why I stopped playing DnD for 14 years.
> 
> Take the strength argument one DM I had put a strength cap of 12 on female characters. Which meant when I rolled a fantastic character that screamed paladin. I was told no sorry there is no way a female could ever be a paladin. If you want to play one you have to play a male.




A good way to summarize my position is that mechanical gender differences might have a place in a game.  If they do, they ought to hang together, be reasonable, and fit into other such modifiers.  Age is a great example.  Mechanical human gender differences for strength have no business being in a game that doesn't penalize characters physically for getting older.  If I'm going to play the cards I'm dealt in the story, I want several cards to play with.

OTOH, if the person writing such rules or house rules is so dense about both games, models, and even real life that they think a female 12 Str cap in a 3-18 range is a good choice ... and isn't clued in that there might be a problem with this by some rather obvious character choices excluded ... then I think sexism is rather the least of his problems.  You can't fix that kind of stupid.


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## JamesonCourage (May 10, 2011)

billd91 said:


> I don't really see the strength differences in this case as a problem. The players *chose* to put those stats in those places because they fit the PCs they want to play (or have rolled the stats to play). That will drive their conceptions stronger than picking/rolling a weight value that's off-kilter. I won't even get into the 16 strength 40 lb halfling that could come up in comparison to that male human example...




Well, in my game, you don't pick stats entirely. You roll in order, than can swap in two, and reroll any one. Because of that, you can always have your highest roll in any stat you want (including Strength). So, you could make it your highest, yes. But you might also have a high Strength as a by-product of character generation. I know that my game is not standard, but even with assigned stats, that can be the case. With point-buy, not so much.



> As a DM, I might encourage the woman PC's player to up the weight a little bit to reflect her strength and create a more believable PC, but ultimately, it's not going to be that big an issue.




Our group picks height and weight after stats for this very reason. I agree, though, that it's not a big issue for us. It's a very small issue.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

billd91 said:


> I don't really see the strength differences in this case as a problem. The players *chose* to put those stats in those places because they fit the PCs they want to play (or have rolled the stats to play). That will drive their conceptions stronger than picking/rolling a weight value that's off-kilter. I won't even get into the 16 strength 40 lb halfling that could come up in comparison to that male human example...
> 
> As a DM, I might encourage the woman PC's player to up the weight a little bit to reflect her strength and create a more believable PC, but ultimately, it's not going to be that big an issue.




It's like that (IMO) undesirable thing that happens when someone plays a minotaur barbarian. Minotaurs are strong, barbarians are stronger... so the barbarian minotaur is super-strong, even for a minotaur! ... But isn't a minotaur already strong enough to be a hugely strong PC barbarian?


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## Crazy Jerome (May 10, 2011)

Darwinism said:


> Sorry, no, the only 'incredible' penalty between women and men is that men, on average, have a longer reach. 'Speed' as a function of musculature doesn't scale like you seem to think that it does; at a certain very easy to reach point you will be moving your limbs as fast as muscles can make them move. Adding a few more pounds of muscle isn't going to make you faster or you'd see a hell of a lot more roided up fencers. But in modern fencing, which doesn't resemble actual combat in the slightest, reach is a pretty big advantage.




First, you'll note that I already said that fencing was not actual combat, and was more advantageous to females in the comparison than real combat. Accordingly, if men have a physical advantage in fencing, that advantage surely exists in real combat.

But on the facts of fencing, you have it backwards. Reach is only a big advantage in modern fencing when it is dramatic, and even then more in epee than in foil. In foil, it is practically non-existent. Movement and judging distance is so much more important. You don't get the guy to miss by 1 inch because he lacks reach. You get him to miss by 1 inch because you retreated just enough to make him miss with by that much with whatever reach he possesses, while still staying in your reach for a riposte or counter-attack.

Fencing is done with the whole body, and a lot of the speed is in the legs. Because how you move that lower body determine when and where you get in reach and out again. Speed matters right up until it doesn't--which is the point where skills trumps a given speed. That is, when the speed mismatch is severe enough, it is decisive. Then as skill mounts, it rapidly reaches a point where it is not only not decisive, but the least important element, compared to timing and skill. A highly competive match between two fencers of roughly equal skill and speed is almost always decided by superior timing, but occasionally decided by tactics, cool, and wits. (Again, it varies by the blades.)  In contrast, you'll see high school and college kids, all really tall kids, sometimes fleche repeatedly, and use other such moves based on practically nothing but speed.  (Hint, they are setting themselves up to play the "bad school' in a Karate Kid movie.)

Finally, have you actually observed the leg muscles of competitive fencers, females included? If you measured shoulder muscles, you'd fine similar though not as extreme development. It is just not as measurable to the naked eye.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> My experience with young fencers mirrors your boffer experience. You just need to get people over the skill hump and build some confidence. The way to build confidence is to say, "Yeah, they are bigger and faster than you, but skill is more important. Develop the skill, and you can push those big guys around!" They love that.




The critical difference is that developing a skill is an action. It's something you can do, which makes it confidence building. Sex is a trait, and except in the rarest cases, immutable. If mentions of your sex repeatedly remind you of negative self-concepts, your self-efficacy decreases.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 10, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> The critical difference is that developing a skill is an action. It's something you can do, which makes it confidence building. Sex is a trait, and except in the rarest cases, immutable. If mentions of your sex repeatedly remind you of negative self-concepts, your self-efficacy decreases.




It's all attitude, though.  I started fencing at 37. That is "too late" to ever be really good.  You peak around 25, and it goes downhill from there.  I'm busy with work.  So you could say that I dwell on negative self-concepts about my age and circumstances, and my self-efficacy would decrease.  Why try, why lose weight, why practice?  Or, I could look at it objectivey.  Fencing is something you can do your whole life. It's fun.  I like teaching the young kids.  I can do it with *my* kids.  I'll get out of it as much as I put into it.  You can't say that about everything.

The owner of the Salle D'Armes (school) likes to call me "the old guy" in front of the other students.  This is usually to motivate the young kids.  "If he can do it, you can do it."  This motivate me rather than discouraging me (which he knows, and is why he doesn't mind doing it). My age is what it is.  It isn't a negative self-concept.  It's a natural physical negative to the activity I am doing.  It doesn't define me.   How I deal with it somewhat defines me.

The earlier anyone, female or male, learns that kind of attitude, the better, as far as I'm concerned.  They'll have immutable traits to overcome their whole life.


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> First, you'll note that I already said that fencing was not actual combat, and was more advantageous to females in the comparison than real combat.




But is it? Reach is important, as is speed, as is strength. Assuming men have any advantages in these areas, I can only assume that in competitive fencing, they would would have an outsized statistical effect for very small real-world differences. 

You say below that skill tends to be the trump. Is it safe to assume there are more male than female fencers?



> Accordingly, if men have a physical advantage in fencing, that advantage surely exists in real combat.




At some level, sure. But how much of an advantage? What sort of combat?



> But on the facts of fencing, you have it backwards. Reach is only a big advantage in modern fencing when it is dramatic, and even then more in epee than in foil. In foil, it is practically non-existent. Movement and judging distance is so much more important. You don't get the guy to miss by 1 inch because he lacks reach. You get him to miss by 1 inch because you retreated just enough to make him miss with by that much with whatever reach he possesses, while still staying in your reach for a riposte or counter-attack.
> 
> Fencing is done with the whole body, and a lot of the speed is in the legs. Because how you move that lower body determine when and where you get in reach and out again. Speed matters right up until it doesn't--which is the point where skills trumps a given speed. That is, when the speed mismatch is severe enough, it is decisive. Then as skill mounts, it rapidly reaches a point where it is not only not decisive, but the least important element, compared to timing and skill. A highly competive match between two fencers of roughly equal skill and speed is almost always decided by superior timing, but occasionally decided by tactics, cool, and wits. (Again, it varies by the blades.)  In contrast, you'll see high school and college kids, all really tall kids, sometimes fleche repeatedly, and use other such moves based on practically nothing but speed.  (Hint, they are setting themselves up to play the "bad school' in a Karate Kid movie.)
> 
> Finally, have you actually observed the leg muscles of competitive fencers, females included? If you measured shoulder muscles, you'd fine similar though not as extreme development. It is just not as measurable to the naked eye.




So much for the smaller PC not having a high Strength score concept. 

What I'm hearing is that men tend to be more powerful fencers, and that in many cases, they would have a considerable reach advantage over (smaller) women. To me that says,

1) D&D strength doesn't seem to be a strong construct in this case to explain the disparity; AC and initiative are Dex-based, and
2) Sex differences in fencing could very well be greater than in real life combat, depending on how you define real life combat, considering the differences seem to favor men or be neutral in each case, and
3) men tend to be higher level fencers

Where does D&D Strength enter into this equation?

Isn't it simpler to assume that there simply are more male fencers, that they take their first "level" of fencer sooner and are likely to train harder throughouth their lives? Just as a for instance, I'm betting pregnancy and childbirth could slow down a fencer a bit at the competitive level....


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## pawsplay (May 10, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> It's all attitude, though.  I started fencing at 37. That is "too late" to ever be really good.  You peak around 25, and it goes downhill from there.  I'm busy with work.  So you could say that I dwell on negative self-concepts about my age and circumstances, and my self-efficacy would decrease.  Why try, why lose weight, why practice?  Or, I could look at it objectivey.  Fencing is something you can do your whole life. It's fun.  I like teaching the young kids.  I can do it with *my* kids.  I'll get out of it as much as I put into it.  You can't say that about everything.
> 
> The owner of the Salle D'Armes (school) likes to call me "the old guy" in front of the other students.  This is usually to motivate the young kids.  "If he can do it, you can do it."  This motivate me rather than discouraging me (which he knows, and is why he doesn't mind doing it). My age is what it is.  It isn't a negative self-concept.  It's a natural physical negative to the activity I am doing.  It doesn't define me.   How I deal with it somewhat defines me.
> 
> The earlier anyone, female or male, learns that kind of attitude, the better, as far as I'm concerned.  They'll have immutable traits to overcome their whole life.




Actually, it is imperturbability that is learned. Children, naturally, are sensitive to negative evaluations of all kinds. See Carl Rogers, Albert Ellis, et al., for details. And no one ever achieves invulnerability.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 10, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> But is it? Reach is important, as is speed, as is strength. Assuming men have any advantages in these areas, I can only assume that in competitive fencing, they would would have an outsized statistical effect for very small real-world differences.
> 
> You say below that skill tends to be the trump. Is it safe to assume there are more male than female fencers?
> 
> ...




Reach is a *minor* consideration, and is primarily handled via strength in the legs, speed and correctness of movement, and so forth. Only three major things matter in fencing--speed, technique, and timing. Everything else is secondary. Wits matter *far* more than reach, even being secondary. Heck, attitude and psychology matter far more than reach. 

I suspect that reach matters a lot more, relatively, in real melee combat, but I can't say how much. But then in real combat, you won't bring a long knife to a halberd fight. If they let me have a spear on the fencing strip, I think I could reverse that 15-4 decision where I lost to a B fencer in one of my better performances. But then, maybe not, since he was in the air force. 

There are probably more male fencers than female fencers. I'm not sure, since I let my USFA subscription lapse last year. It gets closer every year. But *good* fencers? I doubt there is much of a gap in numbers. Anyway, fencers are an odd bunch, anyway. The self-selection factors for the sport are numerous. It isn't called "high speed chess with a blade" for nothing. 

1. To the extent that Dex measures muscle development in D&D (and I agree, it probably does to a great extent), then yes.

2. Sex differences in fencing are definitely less than real world combat. There are numerous reason why, but a big one is that you only need to exert a tiny amount of pressure on a tip to get a touch. Most fencing touches wouldn't even count as a "hit" in D&D, and a lot of the dirty tricks that you could readily do using strength are prohibited by rule.

This is why I tell my daughter that if she is ever in a position where she must defend herself and cannot run, the first thing she should do is break every "red card" and "black card" option that occurs to her. Even at her age, she could really hurt someone doing that. She isn't much bigger than a halfling, and without the chimpanzee body type. 

3. "Higher level fencer" could be taken several ways. But taking the way I think you mean it ... If you put 32 male "A-fencers" in a tournament with 32 female "A-fencers", the males will do better. The chances that a female will win the whole thing is very slight. I wouldn't take 100-1 odds on it, unless I had some inside information on one of the females. 

But this is misleading. The guys got their "A" ratings competing mostly against other guys. The ladies, against ladies. The ladies who place the highest in that tournament will beat several of the guys (and probably frequently enter mixed tournaments for the practice, so that they can beat the women.) Guys don't have this option to practice against such groups. So the "A" ratings don't mean exactly the same thing. 

D&D Strength enters into this because of the middle position I've been taking--or rather, that is precisely where it doesn't enter into it.  My position is that there are real-world differences to men and women in regard to physical capabilities, fencing being an example of which I'm very conversant and find relevant, but that D&D has no business modeling these, as the system does not take into account the things that matter when considering real-world gender physical differences. 

Generally speaking, women are much easier to train in fencing, and learn more rapidly. Child birth can be a set back, of course, as with anything that takes a lot of "time off", but fencing is relatively forgiving of such, once you come back. All of fencing is unnatural, and thus difficult to do correctly, but once you learn it, you don't really forget.

Teenage boys have a terrible time because their body development tends to occur later, and right at the time they are starting to get it. So they start to learn, grow a lot, get all uncoordinated and incapable of doing any physical movement correctly, and then have to learn again with effectively new bodies. A girl that grew rapidly at age 14 or 15 would have the same problem. You can't fence when you can't even walk to the strip without tripping over your own feet. 

Once this is straightened out, however, males rapidly enter their peak fencing period, where they are in a race to develop considerable skill before the physical peak is crested. Females have some of the same dynamics, but their changes lead to a slower but steadier development. It is not uncommon for the 20-40 age bracket to be contested by women on the upper end of the range. (And true of any age bracket, really.) With men, it doesn't work that way. A 35 year old male fencer is fighting the good fight, and developing skills to enjoy the 41-60 bracket.

It is all relative, of course. The owner of the school, now in his 70s, was a lad in New Jersey, learning to fence in the Italian schools common in NJ at the time. There was this old guy with a bad hip and slow as Christmas who used to make all the cocky teenage boys cry. He couldn't even lunge, but if you can put the blade where you need to, moving it a tiny fraction where they can't hit you, it doesn't matter. 

Sufficient skill differences trumps everything.


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## RedTonic (May 10, 2011)

I've lost the thread. I'm also sad that Celebrim hasn't replied to my parry. I don't think anyone's necessarily contesting women's skills... I would always advise when entering into another group's traditional arena for the outsider to utilize lateral tactics to push the opponent outside of the comfort zone and press the attack while the opponent is off balance. Whether male or female--that particular style has little bearing on whether a game should mechanically ensconce sex differences. I will always be an inferior knife-fighter to the gentlemen whom I practiced against in kickboxing while preparing to learn unarmed defense against knife-wielders. I could still "win" (in other words, not be batted around by skilled fighters with twice my reach and strength) by "breaking the rules" and doing something unexpected, which was the point my large, burly male instructor was forcing us to demonstrate. (My general theory in life is that if it's not forbidden, it's allowed until after you do it.) That says little of my physical strength or abilities. If we're all to concede that combat is in essence a mind-game, then attribute mechanics are obstacles to be overcome rather than "bonuses."


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## pawsplay (May 11, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> I suspect that reach matters a lot more, relatively, in real melee combat, but I can't say how much.




I imagine it usually matters less. My experience with boffer combat suggests there is a big difference between tournament fighting versus grand melee. In a tournament, you usually want as much reach as you can get, up to a point of diminishing returns. 

In combat in an open field, though, I think alertness and commitment to attack matter much more than pure speed. I personally use a fairly short blade, generally no more than 30", as my primary weapon. 

In fact, if you look at the history of warfare, firearms have diminished the importance of melee combat, to the point where a melee weapon is not a credible primary weapon. Yet some kind of hand weapon remains an important part of the arsenal. First there was the saber and bayonet, then the trench blade. Modern warfare has pretty much settled, since, on the long knife, where it remains. Something around a foot in length provides just the right amount of heft to provide good cutting and pentration, while using no more reach than is needed. 

This has relevance to our discussion because I'm confident a trained woman can present a credible threat with a knife. The important factors are mainly psychological. Reach means little if you leave yourself open to a counter-thrust, and at best, a mutual death. Power means little, since the strength required to pierce something important with a dagger is not tremendous, and women have been demonstrating their capabilities at butchering animals with blades for millenia. 



> But then in real combat, you won't bring a long knife to a halberd fight.




Well, actually, you might. That's the thing about real combat; you never know what you'll have to deal with.


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## Nightson (May 11, 2011)

The solution to this debate is really pretty simple.

If the D&D world in question has a long entrenched history of sexism like ours does, then gender differences would exist.

If the D&D world had simply never come up with sexism (there are orcs to discriminate against after all!) then there probably wouldn't be gender differences.

In our world, males have been sexually selected for size and athleticism while females have been sexually selected in the exact opposite direction while our society imposes strong cultural linking of athleticism with maleness.  Every weightlifting, jumping and swimming record is made in that context, if the D&D world doesn't have that same context then it could be entirely different.

On a personal note, I do dump that real world context at the door.  Someone suggesting females females shouldn't serve in armies would get the same reaction as someone saying blue eyed people shouldn't serve would get in our world.


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## Fifth Element (May 11, 2011)

Nightson said:


> On a personal note, I do dump that real world context at the door.



Agreed. If someone wants to play an Amazon warrior are you going to tell them the character takes a Strength penalty?


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## Oryan77 (May 11, 2011)

Dang, are you guys still trying to figure out the difference between genders? One has a penis, the other doesn't. Didn't you watch Kindergarten Cop? That's how I learned it.


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## El Mahdi (May 11, 2011)

Nightson said:


> The solution to this debate is really pretty simple.
> 
> If the D&D world in question has a long entrenched history of sexism like ours does, then gender differences would exist...




I keep seeing this throughout this thread - this assumption that mechanical differentiation of strength between sexes is de facto sexism.

It's Not.

Physical differences do exist. It's a physical fact. And those stating this are not automatically "Sexist" because they do so. I'm not denying that the reasons behind some in this thread wanting a mechanical difference, may be based in sexism - I can't read minds to be certain, and simple odds would make that a bad bet. But a mechanical modeling of this is not, in and of itself, _Sexist_. And not everyone who wants that mechanical differentation is pursuing it for sexist reasons.

I'm not trying to single you (Nightson) out specifically (or Fifth Element), and I apologize if it comes across this way. I'm only saying this because there have been a lot of people making this implication throughout this thread, and it's really not fair. Saying that the desire to mechanically model physical differences between Males and Females, is automatically and inherently Sexist, is spurious and unfounded.

I do agree however, that providing a flat Strength penalty in order to model this difference is a poor way to do it. A Strength cap is more mechanically accurate and reasonable - and Yes, that means capping Male Strength also. Looking at real-world examples, simply capping Female Human Strength at 21, and Male Human Strength at 23 provides a realistic mechanic, while still allowing for very strong characters (both Male and Female) of the same strength scores, right out of the gate (at 1st level and up). (*Cap at 20th level and below - in "Epic" games that are going to be played beyond 20th level or intend on exceeding 20th level, strict realism has already been set aside, and so should any Strength limits - IMO.)

For those who ask why a cap is even necessary, I'll say it's not _necessary_...especially as an official core rule...but as a houserule, especially in certain types of campaigns, it may be significantly appropriate. (more on this below)



Fifth Element said:


> ...If someone wants to play an Amazon warrior are you going to tell them the character takes a Strength penalty?




Absolutely Not. I agree with you and the many others in this thread that a Strength penalty is a poor way to go. It makes choosing a Female Human a suboptimal choice mechanically, reduces the "Fun" factor of such for a lot of players, and potentially turns off over 50% of the worlds population from wanting to play in the first place. It's Lose-Lose.

Applying a Strength _Cap_, however, doesn't have the same problems. A _Cap_ allows for equal levelled Male and Female Human Warriors with the same strength score, side by side in the same game/campaign...right up to the point where they each reach their realistic Strength limits.

A perfect example of where this would not only be appropriate, but beneficial to the realism of the setting, is the campaign I've been planning (and hopefully starting soon): a Houseruled D&D campaign set in real-world 12th century England during the Anarchy. Ironically (due to the underlying implications of sexism in this thread), the period is centered around a civil war which had, as one of it's prime motivations (among others), a pervasive belief that a woman could not be monarch. (My campaign plot involves the PC's being vassals of Queen Maude and loyal to her and her claim to the throne.) Also, although not sceintific or abslolutely representative, there are two woman in my game group (my Wife and her cousin) - neither of which have a problem with the above houserule/restriction.

Not all D&D campaigns and games follow default D&D world-assumptions. In some D&D campaigns and gaming groups, realism is an appropriate and desired element.




edit: (P.S. - Even though I use 3E as the basis of my houserules, I've stolen the concept from 4E of using either Dexterity or Strength for "hitting". As it applies to the subject of this thread, that means that a Female Human of 23 Dex, will be just as lethal in combat as a Male Human of 23 Strength. Since IMO, Woman are no less or more dangerous than Men in real combat, this works for me - while still allowing that on average, Men can lift more weight than Women.)


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## billd91 (May 11, 2011)

El Mahdi said:


> Applying a Strength _Cap_, however, doesn't have the same problems. A _Cap_ allows for equal levelled Male and Female Human Warriors with the same strength score, side by side in the same game/campaign...right up to the point where they each reach their realistic Strength limits.




And if the female player who wants to play a female fighter rolls above that cap or builds above it? Then it might as well be the exact same thing as a penalty. A cap is no better than a penalty. In 1e, it prevented maxed out female fighters from gaining +2 to hit, +3 damage compared to maxed out male fighters. Getting rid of the difference in 2e was a good idea.



El Mahdi said:


> Not all D&D campaigns and games follow default D&D world-assumptions. In some D&D campaigns and gaming groups, realism is an appropriate and desired element.




Not at the expense of making some players second class players because of the sex of the character they choose to play. This is a fantasy game, not a simulation of reality. While you want a grounding in reality, you have to consider how attempts to model it affect game play, including the satisfaction of the players around the table. Is modeling the difference between the strength of male and female characters worth negative results ranging from annoyed female players, to fewer female players or reputations that gamer groups are sexist boys clubs? I don't think so.


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## Fifth Element (May 11, 2011)

billd91 said:


> Not at the expense of making some players second class players because of the sex of the character they choose to play. This is a fantasy game, not a simulation of reality. While you want a grounding in reality, you have to consider how attempts to model it affect game play, including the satisfaction of the players around the table. Is modeling the difference between the strength of male and female characters worth negative results ranging from annoyed female players, to fewer female players or reputations that gamer groups are sexist boys clubs? I don't think so.



This is the important part here, I think. Is the small gain in realism (in a game that uses the uber-realistic hit point mechanic, don't forget) worth the negative effects that result from it?


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## NewJeffCT (May 11, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> This is the important part here, I think. Is the small gain in realism (in a game that uses the uber-realistic hit point mechanic, don't forget) worth the negative effects that result from it?




With your one sentence, I think you have accurately summarized this almost 200 post thread!


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## Fifth Element (May 11, 2011)

NewJeffCT said:


> With your one sentence, I think you have accurately summarized this almost 200 post thread!



And I didn't even need a semicolon!


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## Nightson (May 11, 2011)

El Mahdi said:


> I keep seeing this throughout this thread - this assumption that mechanical differentiation of strength between sexes is de facto sexism.
> 
> It's Not.
> 
> Physical differences do exist. It's a physical fact. And those stating this are not automatically "Sexist" because they do so.




That's not remotely what my post said.  Those physical differences exist.  They exist because of sexism.  If you jettison our species history of sexism then you can jettison the physical differences and maintain realism.


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## El Mahdi (May 11, 2011)

billd91 said:


> And if the female player who wants to play a female fighter rolls above that cap or builds above it?.




First of all, if you'd read my entire post, I wanted to cap Female Human Strength at 21.  There is no edition of D&D, that by RAW allows the rolling up of a Human character with 21 Strength at 1st Level.  None.  And personally, short of Magical enhancement, I've never seen a built-up character with a higher than 21 Strength...Ever.  Again: different tables, different experiences.  There is no "One" D&D experience.  Secondly, I also don't believe that limiting Strength scores to a mortal 23 and 21 respectively, is "negatively" impacting anything.  It is however, defining the limits of my campaign world in a realistic manner.  Is it necessary to be that way for every campaign?  Of course not.  Should it be a part of the official rules?  IMO, No.  Does it destroy the "Fun" of the game?  For me and my group: No.  If it does for you then don't use it.

But I'm getting damn tired of people in this thread describing those who want to use such a mechanic, as Sexist.  I believe everybody here is quite aware of the rules of this Forum and the ettiquette expected here.  I think it's high time for people in this thread to start exercising some self control as concerns this.

In the entire history of the world, there has never been a recorded instance of any woman being able to execute a feat of strength greater than what's allowed by a D&D Strength of 21.  Likewise for men and a Strength of 23.  Wanting to run a game where this makes a difference, pointing out that difference, and establishing a mechanic to model that, is not sexist.  It may not be a mechanical philosophy you like, or a type of game you want to play (i.e. attempting realism), but it's not sexist, and I'd appreciate it if you and everybody else who's so casually throwing that about will stop and take a good look at their own motives and actions.



billd91 said:


> Then it might as well be the exact same thing as a penalty. A cap is no better than a penalty. In 1e, it prevented maxed out female fighters from gaining +2 to hit, +3 damage compared to maxed out male fighters. Getting rid of the difference in 2e was a good idea.




A Cap is different than a Penalty, and you know it.  For example: a player wants to make a Female Human.  They roll an 18 Strength.  With a -2 penalty, they now start the game with a 16.  Yeah, that sucks.  With a 21 Cap, they still start the game with an 18 - exactly the same as the Human Male 1st level character that rolled an 18.  It's just that in a game with Caps, all Human characters (both Male and Female) cannot surpass a Strength that is not mortally possible.  It's a significant difference.

Now, your example of what the results of the penalty in 1E meant would have been far more interesting if I cared one whit about 1E - especially as I made it quite clear in my post I'm talking about 3E.  This means a maximum Strength bonus of +5 and +6 respectively - both of which are serious bonuses in both 3E and 4E.  A character with a +5 Strength bonus is far from anemic or weak.  Nice try, but comparing apples and oranges isn't going to score you any points with me.



billd91 said:


> Not at the expense of making some players second class players because of the sex of the character they choose to play.




I'm not making anyone a "second class" player.  And again, I'd appreciate it if you'd remember the rules and ettiquette of this forum and exercise some self control.

Also again, if you had read my entire post, I pointed out how I've taken the concept from 4E, of being able to use Strength or Dexterity for Attack Bonus (players choice at character creation).  If you're only argument is that a Female character can't be as mechanically effective as a Male character because of a Cap, then you're simply flat out wrong.  In my houserules and in 4E, with the application of a Cap, all characters would still have the exact same attack and damage bonus potential.  Let me say that again: *the EXACT same attack and damage bonus potential*.  If a player wants a Female character that has the exact same mechanical combat bonuses as a Male character, then all they need to do is make a Dexterity based character.  Easy Peasy.  All the Cap does is limit maximum lifting capability to real world limits.  Period.  No character, whether male or female, is mechanically limited in their potential efficiency or penalized in combat.  Saying otherwise just isn't true.



billd91 said:


> This is a fantasy game, not a simulation of reality.




D&D is _*not*_ only a fantasy game.  It _*can*_ be full blown fantasy, but it can also be gritty realism, and everything in between.  Whatever you want it to be at your table, it can be.  There is no _wrong_ way to play D&D.  If you're using this as logic and support for why you can't have a mechanical difference between sexes, you should try again. Since the statement isn't correct, any conclusions based off it are also incorrect.

But, back to D&D not being only a Fantasy game: I'm pretty sure you know this already.  I'm pretty sure I've seen you saying similar things yourself in other threads where someone tried to say that D&D was a specific thing, and any thing outside of that is just bad/wrong/fun.  Why are you now saying the very thing you've argued against in other threads?  Perhaps you should take a look at your motives in this discussion if you're willing to purposely say something you don't agree with, just to validate another position you feel strongly about...




billd91 said:


> While you want a grounding in reality, you have to consider how attempts to model it affect game play, including the satisfaction of the players around the table. Is modeling the difference between the strength of male and female characters worth negative results ranging from annoyed female players, to fewer female players or reputations that gamer groups are sexist boys clubs? I don't think so.






Fifth Element said:


> This is the important part here, I think. Is the small gain in realism (in a game that uses the uber-realistic hit point mechanic, don't forget) worth the negative effects that result from it?




Done and Done.

I've read through this thread, and realised that a flat penalty just doesn't accomplish what I was looking for.  A Cap does.  As to affecting gameplay, I've asked the Female gamers in my group (that also exclusively play Female characters) what they thought about this, and they have no problem with a Cap.  Therefore, no negative results.  As with anything, YMMV.



NewJeffCT said:


> With your one sentence, I think you have accurately summarized this almost 200 post thread!




You're more right than you knew (read above)...except that it was two sentences...


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## El Mahdi (May 11, 2011)

Nightson said:


> That's not remotely what my post said. Those physical differences exist. They exist because of sexism. If you jettison our species history of sexism then you can jettison the physical differences and maintain realism.




First of all, you're making an assumption that I carry a sexist bias (whether it's because of species history or any other reason).

You made a false assumption.

Secondly, those differences exist for a lot of reasons. In some species, I'd agree that sexism has played a part and had an influence on development of sexual differentiation (specifically Humans), though I doubt it's even the most significant factor in any species (even Humans). But, even if it is a significant factor, to limit the cause of physical differences between sexes to sexism, completely ignores all other affirmed and speculated reasons for this being so. Differences between Males and Females are prevalent in almost every complex organism on the planet. Since Sexism is by definition, a _belief_ in the superiority of one sex over another, and belief requires (by most definitions) the ability to understand concepts and philosophy, and since the majority of complex organisms (that also have diferentiated sexes) aren't capable of such complex thought, I'd say your assertion is simply not true. 

Everytime someone in this thread has described anyone of developing sexist mechanics, thinking in a sexist manner, being sexist, etc. - they are saying that the specified person has a _*belief*_ in the superiority of Males over Females. I can't answer for everybody in this thread, as statistically it's likely there are people in this thread who do believe that, but as for me (and statistically I'm likely not the only one), I don't share that belief.

Different: Yes.

Superior: Absolutely Not.


Since maybe you weren't aware of the definition of that word, I'll give the benefit of the doubt that no insult was intended. But since you do know now what's being said with that word, I'd ask again:

Please stop describing posters in this thread and there ideas as _Sexist_.

It's insulting, unfair, and against the rules of these Forums.


Thank You. (in advance)


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## billd91 (May 11, 2011)

El Mahdi said:


> Secondly, I also don't believe that limiting Strength scores to a mortal 23 and 21 respectively, is "negatively" impacting anything.  It is however, defining the limits of my campaign world in a realistic manner.




Perhaps you should ask women interested in playing powerful fighters in said theoretical campaign if they'd have negative feelings about being unable to have the same mechanical advantages as the powerful, but male, fighter next to them? It's all well and good for you to postulate that there will be no negative consequences, assuming you aren't the one facing the mechanical inferiority.
But at least the publishers of D&D since 2e have gotten it into their heads that the difference in strength was offering nothing of value over and above the downside. And that was the right decision.



El Mahdi said:


> In the entire history of the world, there has never been a recorded instance of any woman being able to execute a feat of strength greater than what's allowed by a D&D Strength of 21.  Likewise for men and a Strength of 23.  Wanting to run a game where this makes a difference, pointing out that difference, and establishing a mechanic to model that, is not sexist.  It may not be a mechanical philosophy you like, or a type of game you want to play (i.e. attempting realism), but it's not sexist, and I'd appreciate it if you and everybody else who's so casually throwing that about will stop and take a good look at their own motives and actions.




Frankly, I'm not that fussed about the entire history of the world. I'm interested in the experience of my players at the table now. And since a significant proportion of my players are women, one of whom is playing a high strength fighter, I'm going to give history a pass in favor of giving them the same access to experiences as the male players.



El Mahdi said:


> A Cap is different than a Penalty, and you know it.




No matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it's still a pig. In this case, it's still a 2 point deficit compared to the other PC.




El Mahdi said:


> A character with a +5 Strength bonus is far from anemic or weak.  Nice try, but comparing apples and oranges isn't going to score you any points with me.




I generally don't sweat a +1 difference either, but if there's anything we've learned from the hard-core optimizer crowd, a +1 will makes all the difference in the world. It's the reason for the difference that rankles.




El Mahdi said:


> I'm not making anyone a "second class" player.  And again, I'd appreciate it if you'd remember the rules and ettiquette of this forum and exercise some self control.




You might want to look at other posts in the thread like Elf Witch who had to deal with a cap on strength. Tell me she didn't feel like a second class player. Maybe ask other women who played D&D back in those days if they felt a bit alienated from the game because of the strength cap. Maybe you'll notice that some of them felt like second class players.



El Mahdi said:


> If a player wants a Female character that has the exact same mechanical combat bonuses as a Male character, then all they need to do is make a Dexterity based character.  Easy Peasy.  All the Cap does is limit maximum lifting capability to real world limits.  Period.  No character, whether male or female, is mechanically limited in their potential efficiency or penalized in combat.  Saying otherwise just isn't true.




Notice, however, that in order to be as effective, *they have to have a different concept*. There are certain options that just aren't available to them at the same level of effectiveness. They can't play with the boys, at a game that's cerebral not physical in its fundamentals, in the same way.


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## Fifth Element (May 11, 2011)

El Mahdi said:


> As to affecting gameplay, I've asked the Female gamers in my group (that also exclusively play Female characters) what they thought about this, and they have no problem with a Cap.  Therefore, no negative results.  As with anything, YMMV.



Indeed, some have been arguing with respect to the system as a whole, not just what goes on at your table.



El Mahdi said:


> You're more right than you knew (read above)...except that it was two sentences...



The first sentence was not part of the summary.


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## Ampersand999 (May 11, 2011)

A couple of thoughts from the 14 pages of posts I've perused:

I think it's pretty clear if we're going to have a more realistic look at weight and height and correlating them to the stats, then the stats should correlate to the height, weight, etc. instead of them being sort of unrelated to each other as they seem to be in gameplay. That way, we don't have the problem of a normal human with an 18 score in Strength and is only 5'5" and 150 pounds. That would probably take a computer program to resolve.

I think there is a gender difference in some games, but it's not in the stats. I think it is in other game mechanics that lend itself to social options rather than statistical options. For example:

 7th Sea had it where if you were Vodacce (Italian) and female, you can see threads and cast fate cards and pretty much ruin someone else life. Males couldn't do this, but some males, if they took a feat, they were immune to the effects of the female Sorte casters, and that scared the heck out of them (which also lead to many of them trying to find these guys and have them be on their side). I believe a similar taboo was in place if you were from Avalon (The British Isles). 
 World of Time RPG had it where you had a better chance to cast spells if you were female, I believe, otherwise men would go insane.
 And there are a lot of different feats and a few prestige classes, both in print and in home rules, that had a prerequisite in terms of race and gender. Some had stat abilities, but most involved class skills. Unfortunately, none come to mind immediately. I don't recall seeing any specifically in Forgotten Realms, but I thought there might have been a few in the Eberron campaign.

Having social gender issues in a game could be interesting to a degree, not in terms of whether a guy could throw better than a girl, but rather for example if it was assumed for instance if in your game, your Gods allowed men to become priests and women could become druids. It shouldn't be evident everywhere, but creep up in small ways here and there. What your characters would do with those inconsistencies in another wise egalitarian world would be up to them.


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## billd91 (May 11, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> Indeed, some have been arguing with respect to the system as a whole, not just what goes on at your table.




Yup. Since the question in the OP was about gender differences for PCs in RPGs (in general being implied), that's the way I've been pursuing the issue. As I said before, there may be situations in which a gender difference may add to the game. But they really shouldn't be pervasive or the gender on the minus side of the exchange will seek their entertainment elsewhere more often than not. And most publishers, I believe, recognize this.

I'd also like to point out that you don't to have a sexist intent to have a negative downstream effect. Was Gygax intending to keep 1e AD&D as a male's game by putting strength caps on female PCs? Probably not. But it probably did more harm in attracting women to become enthusiasts than it offered any positive effect in play.


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## S'mon (May 11, 2011)

Nightson said:


> That's not remotely what my post said.  Those physical differences exist.  They exist because of sexism.  If you jettison our species history of sexism then you can jettison the physical differences and maintain realism.




Presumably all the other species with sexual body dimorphism are sexist too, then?  That's a lot of sexism!


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## nedjer (May 11, 2011)

This all recalls a kickboxing session a few years ago. Girl and boy face off, boy prances around, flicks a few jabs and feigns a few times. One kick WHAM, boy crying on the floor. Ain't what you got, but how you use it


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## Elf Witch (May 11, 2011)

El Mahdi I would pack up and walk away from your game  if I was told that I had a cap on my strength. Partly because it would bug the crap out of me that my female fighter will never be as good in the long run as a male fighter. It would also bother me that fighters in general both male and females are being penalized. Why should fighters have a cap on their prime attribute and no other class has one. 

And having to make a dex fighter when what I really want is a plate wearing tank just not to have a cap is taking choices away from me.

I don't think most of the guys are sexist here but as a female who has experienced sexism in my life this feels like sexism. With penalties or caps in a game I am being told that my character can never be as good as a male character and no matter how you sugar coat it basically comes down to the fact that male fighters will be superior to female fighters.

My son plays DnD he is in his early thirties and I asked his opinion on this today while we out and his response was that it was a dumb idea not needed and unfair to female characters. He didn't see how it made the game more realistic. That PCs are special and so it is not surprising they are stronger than the average NPC. If you want that kind of realism then do it with your NPC but leave the PCs alone. There are a lot of in game ways to explain it the higher strength. The female fighters have been touched by the gods, their race has been modified by wizards those were just two ideas we came up with.


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## Nightson (May 12, 2011)

El Mahdi said:


> First of all, you're making an assumption that I carry a sexist bias (whether it's because of species history or any other reason).
> 
> You made a false assumption.
> 
> ...




Christ, I am not calling you sexist.  

Saying sexism is only the belief that one sex is superior is just a poor definition.  Enforcing gender roles is sexist too.  Which is not what you're doing when you talk about an existing strength gap between genders.  

But if someone (nobody in this thread) talks about how women should stay in the kitchen and raise kids and definitely not work or drive, even if they profess that they don't hold males to be superior, just fulfilling separate roles, nobody in this thread would not call them sexist.  

I am talking about this only to say the definition you provide is insufficient, for this conversation, people use sexism to describe sex based discrimination all the time.

We as a species, sexually select for larger, more muscular men and and smaller and less muscular women.  This is a cultural meme that is sexist.  It's been in place a long time, and is still in place now.  The tall, muscular guy who can benchpress 400 pounds, that's not going to stop him from getting dates, it's a plus.  The tall, muscular women who can benchpress 400 pounds is not in the same situation, she's going to have a much harder time getting dates.  

Further we live in a culture where athleticism is a male trait.  Females are discouraged from it, by peers, by parents, by culture.  You lose girls every step of the way.

It's not sexist at all to say the differences exist.  It's also not sexist to claim the difference is entirely genetic and inherent.  I think it's wrong but it's not sexist.

The point I made in my post is that if you jettison the sexism in our society.  Remove the gender roles and the discouragement, remove the sexual selection for larger males and smaller females, and you're going to find that if there's a difference it's going to be much, much smaller then the already not that large difference.

So if you have a strength penalty or a strength cap of women in your D&D world for realism purposes, then you should make sure the world also has a history of sexism towards women in that it enforced the gender roles that helped lead to it.

And if you don't have a penalty or cap, then just jettison the cultural baggage of sexism and you'll be just as realistic.


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## Nightson (May 12, 2011)

S'mon said:


> Presumably all the other species with sexual body dimorphism are sexist too, then?  That's a lot of sexism!




If male spiders could make signs you better believe they'd be demonstrating against this whole getting eaten after sex thing.


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## S'mon (May 12, 2011)

Nightson said:


> The point I made in my post is that if you jettison the sexism in our society.  Remove the gender roles and the discouragement, remove the sexual selection for larger males and smaller females, and you're going to find that if there's a difference it's going to be much, much smaller then the already not that large difference.




While this is probably overstated, my impression is that among human ethnies there do seem to be some differences in the amount of male/female dimorphism.  Nordic and West African women seem rather larger compared to their men than do Mediterranean or Arab women compared to their men, for instance.  Just comparing say Norwegian and Italian women it seems quite noticeable to me, even though the men are still much larger in both cases.  I'm not sure if any studies have been done on this though.


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## Fifth Element (May 12, 2011)

S'mon said:


> Presumably all the other species with sexual body dimorphism are sexist too, then?  That's a lot of sexism!



Compared to a great many species, human males and females are basically identical to each other. Other than the bits that make them male and female, of course.


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## Ettin (May 12, 2011)

I personally approve of any houserule which enforces real-world gender differences for realism purposes in a game where elves shoot magic at flying lizards that can be explained to a Women's Studies class with a straight face.


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## pawsplay (May 12, 2011)

S'mon said:


> While this is probably overstated, my impression is that among human ethnies there do seem to be some differences in the amount of male/female dimorphism.  Nordic and West African women seem rather larger compared to their men than do Mediterranean or Arab women compared to their men, for instance.  Just comparing say Norwegian and Italian women it seems quite noticeable to me, even though the men are still much larger in both cases.  I'm not sure if any studies have been done on this though.




Obviously, we need a separate set of racial modifiers for Nordic characters in RPGs.


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## NewJeffCT (May 12, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Obviously, we need a separate set of racial modifiers for Nordic characters in RPGs.




There are RPGs that do have human races with different stats.  I know in 3E days, the Midnight setting had 3 human races, including a big burly Nordic type race that received a +2 to STR and a -2 to INT.  (Dorn?)  Then, a smaller human race that received a +2 to CHA and a -2 to WIS, and a third human race that was a mix of the first two where the PC could choose his or her +2 and -2.

But, that's a topic for an entirely different thread.


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## WizarDru (May 12, 2011)

Ampersand999 said:


> I think there is a gender difference in some games, but it's not in the stats. I think it is in other game mechanics that lend itself to social options rather than statistical options. For example:




Those examples aren't really what the OP was talking about.  They most certainly ARE differences, but they're setting differences, not always mechanical ones.  Being an Aes Sedai in the Wheel of Time setting versus being a male channeler prior to the Cleansing is clearly in favor of the female character: men are hated and feared for destroying the world and destined to go insane, while women are powerful both socially and politically once they attain the shawl.  But in terms of BEING a spellcaster, they are the same (though men and women generally are more powerful at different types of 'weaves' of the One Power).  I honestly don't recall any gender-based feats, skills or prestige classes in WotC's materials, myself.

In these cases, choices are limited by setting, not purely based solely on gender.  Unless you're playing in the Gor setting, women most likely have some things to which they are considered superior and men have other things for themselves.  This is no different than being told that Elves will be shot on sight in OrcTown and vice-versa.  Logically, someone who wanted to play in the WoT setting is more inclined to accept those gender differences (but not gender inequalities).

I am curious how folks handle the 'Game of Thrones' setting.  Westeros is not a great place to be a woman overall, and I wonder how an RPG set there would have to offer opportunities for female characters.  Since I've never picked the game up, I don't know...though I assume someone had recommendations of some sort.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (May 13, 2011)

WizarDru said:


> I am curious how folks handle the 'Game of Thrones' setting.  Westeros is not a great place to be a woman overall, and I wonder how an RPG set there would have to offer opportunities for female characters.  Since I've never picked the game up, I don't know...though I assume someone had recommendations of some sort.




I'm in a Game of Thrones game 

All the players are male. One is playing a female character, the daughter of the lord of the house. (He doesn't have any sons.) She has lower status due to not being male, but in effect makes up for this by not spending points on being the heir to the house. She put those points into Tactics instead. (It's a tradeoff similar to being a younger or older character; if you're younger, you get fewer skill points, but more destiny points.)

On occasion an NPC will be sexist, like the captain of the guard (when her father's not there, of course). It's not easy to tell; said PC is also very young (16) and has the Naive flaw, meaning said NPCs might have legitimate reasons to oppose her actions that have nothing to do with her gender.

It's a topic that needs to be handled with sensitivity, obviously. Even in that setting, we have characters like Brienne "the Beauty" (who put all her points into fighting and is _not_ a hot amazon) or Arya. Especially the former is not respected for being a female warrior, but that doesn't prevent her from kicking butt (no statistical penalty in the game system). In such a setting, female warriors were realistically rare, not due to some statistical issue, but because female characters rarely had access to that kind of training for social reasons. (And, of course, a player can always write a background to explain how their female PC got that kind of training.)

So I guess I'm saying nothing beyond a social penalty is acceptable, although the DM can feel free to have female NPCs be very different and have lots of sexist NPCs too.

Oddly enough, I've had a female gamer some years ago say she thought female PCs should have a Strength penalty, but since any game I'm running or playing in uses point buy, I could just tell her to take points away from Strength and put them into whatever if she so felt like it. There's no need for actual rules to make character choices like that for the players.


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## billd91 (May 13, 2011)

WizarDru said:


> I am curious how folks handle the 'Game of Thrones' setting.  Westeros is not a great place to be a woman overall, and I wonder how an RPG set there would have to offer opportunities for female characters.  Since I've never picked the game up, I don't know...though I assume someone had recommendations of some sort.




If you use the novels as a model, only part of the action is on the battlefield or tournament grounds. Plenty of it is in the courts, where women may not have final authority in most cases but they have plenty of influence (Cersei Lannister, Catelyn Stark, Melisandre, Olenna Redwyne, and of course Daenerys Targaryen). And even with stuff going on in the war-torn countryside, you've got the examples of Brienne of Tarth, Meera Reed, Ygritte the wildling, and Asha Greyjoy, all capable of holding their own in a fight. And that's just in the first 3 books. I haven't even dug into A Feast for Crows yet.


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## Somebloke (May 13, 2011)

Ettin said:


> I personally approve of any houserule which enforces real-world gender differences for realism purposes in a game where elves shoot magic at flying lizards that can be explained to a Women's Studies class with a straight face.




You just won the thread. 

My own campaign acknowledges differences in phsyical/mental attributes....for NPCs, and even then it's never impacted stats. If one of my female players wants to play a muscular amazon who can cleave through flesh and armour with a single blow I for one am completely supportive.


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## RPG_Tweaker (May 13, 2011)

Despite what physical/social traits might be appropriate based on their gender, I won't impose statistical alterations to PCs.

PCs are unique persons, they are _specifically_ outside "the standard". They are not Joe/Jane Average... even if they appear to start that way.

These are the characters where, in film, the names of the people playing them appear in the _opening_ credits.


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## El Mahdi (May 13, 2011)

Nightson said:


> Christ, I am not calling you sexist.
> 
> Saying sexism is only the belief that one sex is superior is just a poor definition.




You are calling me sexist, whether you intended it or not.  Whether you understood the actual definition of the word or not, that's what that word means and that's the word you used, so therefore that _is_ what you were saying.

Whether you consider it a bad definition or not, it is the accepted definition.  Since it is the definition that most people go by, and that is their (and my) understanding of the word, when you use that word to describe someone or something, you're saying that they/it have or is based upon a belief that Males are superior to Females.

You can personally have a broader or different definition if you want, but you still have to be aware of the meaning accepted by those you're using it with, and be responsible for the accuracy of your communication...especially now that you know what the real definition of that word is.

Please bear that in mind.

Thank You.


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## NewJeffCT (May 13, 2011)

Somebloke said:


> My own campaign acknowledges differences in phsyical/mental attributes....for NPCs, and even then it's never impacted stats. If one of my female players wants to play a muscular amazon who can cleave through flesh and armour with a single blow I for one am completely supportive.




That is how I generally play it in my games.  Male NPCs are typically bigger and stronger and are the vast majority of the town guards.  However, I have no problems whatsoever if a woman wants to play a powerful female warrior with exceptional strength... and, I have no qualms about making a major female villain who can do that to the PCs.  (In my last campaign, the BBEG was a high priest who led an evil theocracy, but his champion was a female Paladin of Tyranny who was every bit as strong as the party's dwarf fighter...however, the party's goliath barbarian (also female) had her beat by 2, I think)

I would say a woman 'tank' fighter would be considered unusual, but not unheard of by any stretch in my games.


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## El Mahdi (May 13, 2011)

Elf Witch said:


> El Mahdi I would pack up and walk away from your game if I was told that I had a cap on my strength.




I know that is a common sentiment on these boards to express a dislike in something.  But this time it has a bit more import to me, and resulting disapointment.  I remember from the Gamers Seeking Gamers page that you're relatively close to where I live.  Once I finally got my houserules and campaign finished, I was going to start trying to put together a full group.  Hopefully one with multiple GM's switching between campaigns and game systems.  I'm not presuming that you would have wanted to participate, but I am disapointed now knowing you likely wouldn't even consider it because of this.



Elf Witch said:


> Partly because it would bug the crap out of me that my female fighter will never be as good in the long run as a male fighter. It would also bother me that fighters in general both male and females are being penalized. Why should fighters have a cap on their prime attribute and no other class has one.
> 
> And having to make a dex fighter when what I really want is a plate wearing tank just not to have a cap is taking choices away from me.
> 
> I don't think most of the guys are sexist here but as a female who has experienced sexism in my life this feels like sexism. With penalties or caps in a game I am being told that my character can never be as good as a male character and no matter how you sugar coat it basically comes down to the fact that male fighters will be superior to female fighters.




You have some misconceptions about my houserules (but understandable since there's no way you could have ever seen them...).

First, I use the 4E concept of being able to choose which physical attribute one wants to use as the primary for combat.  That means choosing Strength or Dexterity (I even allow using Intelligence) as the determiner for Attack and Damage bonuses.  If what one is looking for is a specific numerical bonus, then go with an ability that can be raised the highest (and roleplay it accordingly: i.e.  Strong, Dextrous, or Smart).

Second, I do cap other abilities also.  No ability score for any race can ever be higher than 23...period.  Beyond this is a range unreachable by Mortals.  Also, other races have caps much lower.  For instance, I think it's absurd to have a 3' tall Gnome walking around with 18 strength (able to lift 300 lbs. over their head...that's ten times their own body weight!).

Third, characters have a defensive progression, with Defense bonuses based on a choice of Dexterity or Intelligence.  Also, armor provides a slight defensive increase in combination with a damage reduction factor (but I don't use RAW DR, armor instead provides extra Hit Points).

Lastly, I've rewritten the majority of skills.  Swimming, orginally a Strength based skill, is now Constitution based (endurance) - and can only be used trained.  Jump (and similar skills), much like combat bonuses, use either Strength or Dexterity (whichever the player chose as the primary attribute at character creation).

So, even with a Strength cap, a Female character has the EXACT same potential as a Male character, at every level and across all aspects of the game (combat, skills, feats, etc.).  A Female Armored Tank character is going to have the exact same combat potential as a Male Armored Tank...no sugar coating necessary.  The only difference will be in sheer lifting capability.  Since a 21 Strength allows for an equivalent to the real-world Womens Olympic Weightlifting World Record (and then some), and a 23 Strength allows for an equivalent to the real-world Mens Olympic Weightlifting World Record (and then some, again), AND THIS IS THE ONLY DIFFERENCE, I don't have a problem with it.  Different is not automatically unequal.

In a pure Fantasy game, the sky is the limit - and I prefer it that way.  Character concepts that are completely outside of reality, even character concepts that seem silly or absurd to some, are completely okay and even encouraged.  The campaign I'm preparing IS NOT a Fantasy Campaign.  In a non-Fantasy campaign, allowing unrealisitic concepts or abilities would be absurdly inappropriate.

I appreciate and understand your feelings about this and the reasons for it, but I think you're unfairly judging this based on that.

Personally, I also wouldn't want caps like this in a standard D&D game, but I'm also not going to tell anyone who does that they are wrong or sexist.  I believe that I'm not qualified to judge anyone elses intentions or motivations, and I'm definitely not qualified to tell anyone else what is wrong or un-fun for them or their group.  I don't believe anyone else here is qualifed to do that either.



Elf Witch said:


> My son plays DnD and he is in his early thirties.  I asked his opinion on this today while we were out, and his response was that it was a dumb idea, not needed, and unfair to female characters. He didn't see how it made the game more realistic. He said that PCs are special and so it is not surprising they are stronger than the average NPC. If you want that kind of realism then do it with your NPC but leave the PCs alone. There are a lot of in game ways to explain the higher strength. *The female fighters have been touched by the gods, their race has been modified by wizards...those were just two ideas we came up with.*




Both of which would be completely inappropriate for a campaign based on a real historical period and events.  I wonder if you told him the entire premise in which it was being used, specifically a historical non-fantasy campaign, and whether his answer would be different with that information?

Even in this campaign, PC's _are_ special.  But they're special not because of their skills or stats, but because they think and act differently than those who aren't Heros.  It's not the stats that matter, it's what you do with them.

Just like in real life.


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## Orius (May 13, 2011)

The old 1e rules were probably an attempt to try to model some realism onto the original game.  Not just reflecting the overall average strength of women compared to men, but also an attempt to model the pseudo-medieval world the D&D rules were usually crammed into.  In such a society, men are mostly going to be warriors or laborers.  The warriors are going to be trained from childhood to build strength since it's very important in pre-modern warfare, while a male laborer is probably going to be doing a lot of physical tasks that will build strength.  I'm not sure if it was meant to be consciously sexist, but we're also dealing with 1e ideas of balance, which we've noted here before were somewhat different than the more modern rules.  And also, I wouldn't even bother trying to keep D&D strictly medieval since I've long since come to the conclusion that medieval fits poorly, so it doesn't neceesarily need to conform to medieval gender roles.

If we're talking about adding some sort of penalty to something like 3e rules, then you need a bonus somewhere to balance things out.  This is discussed in the DMG under racial adjustments.  Strength has a big impact on game balance, so if you're going to penalize it you need to give and equal bonus to either Dex or Con to compensate.  Downside is that like El Mahdi said, Dex and Con are a bit more generalized than Str, it's harder to measure them in real world tems.  You can't balance it as well by penalizing Int, Wis, or Cha because then you need 2 or all three to compensate, and as someone who's always been the intellectual nerd rather than the dumb jock, I'd find that insulting.

I also agree with him that a cap hurts a little less than a penality, since the cap only comes into play if you roll high enough to hit it, or if it limits point buy.  The Str 12 cap mentioned earlier in the thread was pretty damn asinine and simply unreasonable (not to mention unrealistic, I'm sure plenty of medieval women hit at least the equivalent of 13 simply from various labors), though OTOH, El Mahdi's cap of 21 is kind of academic because it's beyond the normal human range anyway, so why bother.  The penalty always hits though whether you roll 10 or 18, you're still down points.  Then again in 3e, you've got ability increases.  That messes up things with a cap, unless the cap is so high that you're not going to reach it.  And again with penalties, even though you are increasing the score, you still have less points.

In the end, I think D&D tends to be so generalized that it's just not worth trying to model the differences between men and women (which are more than just gross anatomical difference), especially when some people will find it insulting no matter how much you try to balance it or make it fair or whatever.  It's also so general that there's no single default for cultural gender norms.  And it's fantasy, so realism is moot.  It just adds too many problems to the game with arguments and assumptions about my views, and no real benefits to balance that I wouldn't bother. The only system I can think of that might have enough detail to model the differences is F.A.T.A.L., and we all know how badly wrong that is in any number of ways.


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## Hussar (May 13, 2011)

Just to repeat something that was said pages ago - halfings in 3e get a -2 Str penalty.

Do people realize how small a 3e halfing is?  Absolute largest halfing is 4 feet tall and 60 pounds.  This is about half the weight of an average medium sized woman.  And that's a fairly skinny woman at that.  If being the size of a FOUR YEAR OLD nets you a -2 Strength penalty, why on earth would being female give you any sort of strength penalty or cap?


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## ThirdWizard (May 13, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Just to repeat something that was said pages ago - halfings in 3e get a -2 Str penalty.
> 
> Do people realize how small a 3e halfing is?  Absolute largest halfing is 4 feet tall and 60 pounds.  This is about half the weight of an average medium sized woman.  And that's a fairly skinny woman at that.  If being the size of a FOUR YEAR OLD nets you a -2 Strength penalty, why on earth would being female give you any sort of strength penalty or cap?




I think the counter was that halflings must built like chimpanzees. I'm not joking.


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## Celebrim (May 13, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Do people realize how small a 3e halfing is?




Absolutely.  I live with a couple of them.



> Absolute largest halfing is 4 feet tall and 60 pounds.  This is about half the weight of an average medium sized woman.  And that's a fairly skinny woman at that.  If being the size of a FOUR YEAR OLD nets you a -2 Strength penalty...




Which is I think pretty ridiculous.

Without going into the details, size has a much larger impact on you in my house rules than it does in stock 3.X.  Housecats have good reason to fear commoners.  Not only that, but you can't play a gnome or a halfling under my house rules, though granted that is mostly for reasons of flavor.   I bring this up because you seem to think that you've discovered some sort of hypocrisy on the part of anyone who disagrees with you, and I want to point out that while I don't apply a strength penalty to human females I think the RAW rules for size are ridiculous.

So not only do I think claims hypocrisy is a stupid basis in and of itself for an attack on someone elses position, but you have no evidence that anyone is actually a hypocrite.   The two issues are unrelated.   What you do or don't do with halflings has no real bearing on what you do or don't do about female strength.



> why on earth would being female give you any sort of strength penalty or cap?




Why on earth would appealing to the existance of a fantasy race whose characteristics cannot be really measured have anything to do with how you view the reality of the differences in strength between human men and women?  If it doesn't exist, I can assign it whatever characteristics I prefer.

Are you trying to claim that its impossible that a creature that only weighs at most 60 lbs would be only about 10% less strong than a human?   If that is what you are claiming, then yes, I do offer the chimpanzee as one of several possible counterexamples.


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## JamesonCourage (May 13, 2011)

Easily explainable if you really wanted to. Chimpanzee musculature (about four times as strong as a human). In addition, we should keep in mind that halflings also have a reduced carrying capacity due to being small-sized.

Again, I don't use any particular rules about it, but it seems like a poor argument in a game where other creatures aren't really questioned about their strength (such as giants being able to stand, or giant insects being able to breathe).

I'm not sure how arguing about the actual fluff interpretation is useful, but I do find the discussion on how people feel about it interesting.

Nobody ever responded to what I asked earlier, either, so I guess I'll try again. What if instead of any stat penalty or cap, each gender got one free feat (in D&D)? Something like Athletic for men, and something like Endurance for women? Is this objectionable? If so, why is it? Either gender can spend their feat to be just as good as the other gender as of character creation.

As always, play what you like


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## Celebrim (May 13, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Easily explainable if you really wanted to. Chimpanzee musculature (about four times as strong as a human). In addition, we should keep in mind that halflings also have a reduced carrying capacity due to being small-sized.




Chimpanzee is one example.  I'd put forward the Caracal as another one.  Average weight is about 30 lbs, so we are dealing with small cats, yet they have a 15' vertical jump and have been known to take prey weighing more than 100 lbs and haul it up into a tree.   To really deal with strength realisticly, you have to introduce GULLIVER style natural or negative encumbrance rules.  The point being, that while a 30lb creature as strong as a man violates our intuition, its not impossible to have a 30lb creature with average strength that exceeds human norms (much less 'only has a -2 penalty').   



> Again, I don't use any particular rules about it, but it seems like a poor argument in a game where other creatures aren't really questioned about their strength (such as giants being able to stand, or giant insects being able to breathe).




Again, anyone that wants extreme realism should google 'GULLIVER' and 'GURPS' if they want to take this to a logical extreme.



> Nobody ever responded to what I asked earlier, either, so I guess I'll try again. What if instead of any stat penalty or cap, each gender got one free feat (in D&D)? Something like Athletic for men, and something like Endurance for women? Is this objectionable?




Not objectionable.  It probably doesn't actually accomplish the result for everyone who cares about this sort of thing though.  The point of a cap or stat penalty is to emphasize the differences in the extreme case.   A bonus feat which didn't stack and which was not gender specific would simply mean that the averages were different but in the extreme case they were the same.

An implementation that highlighted differences between the sexes would be to make the bonuses granted by the Athletic and Endurance feats differ for men and women.   In this case, the average would (nearly) be the same, but the extreme case would be different.


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## Mallus (May 13, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> It probably doesn't actually accomplish the result for everyone who cares about this sort of thing though.  The point of a cap or stat penalty is to emphasize the differences in the extreme case.   A bonus feat which didn't stack and which was not gender specific would simply mean that the averages were different but in the extreme case they were the same.



Which brings us back around to: what result _is_ one trying to accomplish by hardcoding gender-based stat differences into the game? 

We aren't talking about real-world strength differences between women and men. We're talking about whether it's okay for _Red Sonja_ to be as strong as _Conan_. So all these facts and figures involving clean-and-jerk records, Scandinavian track-and-field proficiency, and chimpanzee musculature are, while certainly informative, rather beside the point.

Because we're talking about Red Sonja and Conan.

Moreover, we're talking about a context in which completely unrealistic depictions of _male_ strength are not only tolerated, but commonplace. _De rigueur_. Unarmed men can win fistfights with adult gorillas, wrestle giant snakes, go toe to toe with frost giants out of Norse myth, et cetera. 

So the depiction of a human male strength relative to, well, mostly everything else, doesn't need to be realistic. But human male strength relative to human female strength _does_.

Why?

I'm not interested in labeling anyone as sexist. But can you see how this, superficially at least, has the _appearance_ of sexism. Why is greater  realism important _in this specific instance_? I'd love to be talking about that. It's the interesting question.

Perhaps the answer is: no reason. It's arbitrary. A gamer fetish like insisting katanas be mechanically superior to every other type of sword...


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## Crazy Jerome (May 13, 2011)

Mallus said:


> Perhaps the answer is: no reason. It's arbitrary. A gamer fetish like insisting katanas be mechanically superior to every other type of sword...




It isn't arbitrary, but it is often based on assumptions that are not clearly stated (or even known), which is going to seem highly arbitrary to other people, and sometimes will be in practice.

I'll say again my original point in condensed form:  I'm fine with mechanical differences in humans by gender in a game with a lot or random character generation, if everything is more or less random:  age, size, intelligence, social background, etc.--and the randomness is put together with some reasonable plan to accomplish a certain style.

Said by itself, that sounds incredibly arbitrary.  Now that we've had this discussion, agree or disagree with that position, I doubt many here would find it arbitrary.  But go back before we had it, and just assume I made it in passing in some other context.  It would *sound* arbitrary.


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## Celebrim (May 13, 2011)

Mallus said:


> Which brings us back around to: what result _is_ one trying to accomplish by hardcoding gender-based stat differences into the game?




I'm not sure, but one obvious answer is that they are trying to loosely enforce gender based differences in the game.   



> We're talking about whether it's okay for _Red Sonja_ to be as strong as _Conan_.




Ok, fine.  But it's worth noting that she wasn't.  And generally, in fantasy literature even the 'kick butt girl' finds that some male nemesis is stronger than her and has to defeat him by a combination of wits, skill, and agility.   It's probably a trope.  Even fantasy literature which you are falling back on as a defense in this case tends to treat men and women as being different, even in the cases where it is trying to elevate and encourage women. 

(Which I might not is not necessarily the motive behind 'Red Sonya' and if anything the opposite is probably true.  She's male fan-service, not an example of actual admiration of the feminine).  



> So the depiction of a human male strength relative to, well, mostly everything else, doesn't need to be realistic. But human male strength relative to human female strength _does_.




Nothing prevents a women from being supernaturally strong as well.  None of the feats of strength you describe need be off limits to a hypothetical female brute.  



> I'm not interested in labeling anyone as sexist. But can you see how this, superficially at least, has the _appearance_ of sexism.




Honestly I hear that sort of thing and I just tune out.  Sexism is such a mindless and reflexive charge these days that its become meaningless.  I'm married to a woman with a Ph.D. and who can out run me at distance.  The notion that I'm afraid of strong women is so laughable on its face that I tend to just assume issues on the part of anyone who brings it up and thereafter ignore them as beyond my help.  As means of shutting down debate, cries of 'sexism' are great;  as a means of demonstrating anything or convincing anyone they pretty much suck.



> Why is greater  realism important _in this specific instance_? I'd love to be talking about that. It's the interesting question.




Presumably because gender differences are real and something more relevant to a deep and meaningful discussion than the ability to go toe to toe with a frost giant.   If we erase gender differences, then we are essentially tabling them for discussion.   Some in this thread have indicated that they should be erased precisely for that reason, because the very discussion of them is distasteful or even threatening, and that's fine.  I'm not going to judge that either except to say that I think you should see that as your problem and not someone elses.  Maybe the game is better for you if they are tabled, in which case I heartily endorse your decision.  I just don't endorse your blanket condemnation of anyone that disagrees.



> Perhaps the answer is: no reason. It's arbitrary. A gamer fetish like insisting katanas be mechanically superior to every other type of sword...




Perhaps.  I'm not here to provide judgement over why someone would do this; I'm merely noting that there could be some reasonableness to it.  My primary interest in this thread has been to act as some of a counter balance to the reflexive cries of sexism.   Whether I've made anyone think I have no idea.


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## Elf Witch (May 13, 2011)

El Mahdi said:


> I know that is a common sentiment on these boards to express a dislike in something.  But this time it has a bit more import to me, and resulting disapointment.  I remember from the Gamers Seeking Gamers page that you're relatively close to where I live.  Once I finally got my houserules and campaign finished, I was going to start trying to put together a full group.  Hopefully one with multiple GM's switching between campaigns and game systems.  I'm not presuming that you would have wanted to participate, but I am disapointed now knowing you likely wouldn't even consider it because of this.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I have no experience with 4 ED so when someone says use dex instead of strength I look at it from a 3.5 point of view. And in my opinion dex based fighters have a lot of disadvantages in that system. Now if they are being allowed to use that to hit and do damage and wear decent armor then I would have no issue. My big issue in 3.5 with dex fighters is the armor issue. Without magic to boost up your ac you are stuck with chain as the best you can do.

I played a dex based fighter in a low magic game and after awhile it stopped being fun. I got tired of being hit because of my lower AC. Where the tanks in heavy armor were able to go toe to toe with the bad guys.

I also played one is 3.0 game where the DM changed how armor and damage worked. Basically armor took off points of damage and dex made you harder to hit. So a plate wearing tank got hit more often but took less damage and the dex light armor got hit a lot less but it hurt more when they got hit hard. That made playing a dex based fighter a lot more fun.

As a player I don't have an issue with the DM wanting to try something different like cap abilities or forbid certain classes or races. As long as it is aimed at all the PCs not just a few of them.

I played in the early days of 1 ED and I have to tell you that a lot of the stuff that went on left a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to some of this. I saw it as an excuse a lot of DM used to penalize female characters because the idea that a woman would be as good a fighter as a man was just unbelievable.  

As someone who has experienced it I am going to say that it is wrong to do it in a standard fantasy game. It may not be sexist in the pure sense of the word but it has the potential to marginalize female characters for no other reason than it might make the game a little more realistic. 

In one game I played in all one session there was a lot of rape of female characters. The DM based it on realism because rape by conquering forces was fairly common, sadly it is a tactic still being used by some armed forces. It was very tasteless and made me and the other girl at the table very uncomfortable. 

In another game female characters had str, and int penalties because at that time it was thought that men were smarter than woman because of math and science. The only advantage female characters got was a plus to seduction.

It was things like this that made me quit gaming and when I came back I only played superhero games where you didn't have to deal with this stuff. I didn't start playing DnD again until 1995. 

While most fantasy games are based on a pseudo medieval world they are far from mirroring the real historical world. As someone who has studied that period of time for my SCA persona I can pretty much say that that none of the games I played DnD in came close to be historically accurate. I don't have an issue with that. But it does seem silly to just focus on one thing and that being how strong woman are compared to men.

As for an historical game that is a different story if you are going for that realism in all areas then yes I can see doing different strength caps for male and female. But in that style a game I would hope not to see elves and dragons and magic being used.  Because then it is no longer an historical game but a fantasy and that leads me back to why are you choosing the realism of differences in male and females strength. While allowing other non realistic things in game.

I played Pendragon with all the minuses in size and strength as a female knight pretending to be a male knight. It was fun and I enjoyed the role playing of hiding my true identity. But to be honest I am not a huge fan of most historical games because woman's roles in them are often confining it kind of sucked to be a woman for most part in the past. Often you were just glorified property of your male relatives.

My conversation with my son was based on this entire thread not just what you said. I am sorry if that was miscommunicated on my part. And we were talking about standard DnD games.

I don't want to give the impression that I would not be interested in hearing what you would want to do if you invited me to your table. Actually as a player I am very flexible and willing to work with the DM on helping make his concept come to life. What you described does not sound like you are trying to marginalize female fighters or fighters in general. I would not have an issue that I can't lift as much weight as a male character as long as I am just as good in combat and can kick butt and take names with the rest of the fighters.


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## JamesonCourage (May 14, 2011)

Elf Witch said:
			
		

> As for an historical game that is a different story if you are going for that realism in all areas then yes I can see doing different strength caps for male and female. But in that style a game I would hope not to see elves and dragons and magic being used. Because then it is no longer an historical game but a fantasy and that leads me back to why are you choosing the realism of differences in male and females strength. While allowing other non realistic things in game.




This is something I don't completely understand. Why is it bad to have a certain balance between fantasy and simulation? Why must it be, "if you involve fantasy, throw out most of the concepts of realism in the game"?

It seems, to me, that you can strike a balance between the two. I can have giants and dragons in the game and still want to simulate as much as possible. Does that seem like too much to want?


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## Elf Witch (May 14, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> This is something I don't completely understand. Why is it bad to have a certain balance between fantasy and simulation? Why must it be, "if you involve fantasy, throw out most of the concepts of realism in the game"?
> 
> It seems, to me, that you can strike a balance between the two. I can have giants and dragons in the game and still want to simulate as much as possible. Does that seem like too much to want?




I can understand wanting realism even in fantasy. But we are playing a game for fun and enjoyment that is why I play. So when you start bringing in restrictions like strength caps or penalties based on being a female character I have to wonder how that bit of realism is more vital to the cause of realism than say having talking dragons.


I don't have an issue with gender restrictions to classes in a game. If it is there for world flavor. I have done it in a game I ran. It was based on an Amazon like society where woman were warriors and men were not allowed to become warriors because in the past there war like ways had led them to almost destroying the world. 

I would play in a game that did the opposite and said no female warriors as long as I had other viable choices. As long as it was for this game not every game like the jerky DM who said no female paladins ever in any game he ran.


----------



## pawsplay (May 14, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Which is I think pretty ridiculous.




Why? Chimpanzees aside, you have an adult creature which can wield many human-sized implements. You are pretty much stuck in the -4 to -2 range for a Str modifier if you want something playale and realistic. An actual chimpanzee has more than human strength.  Halflings are not built like chimpanzees, and their strength falls back considerably, but there isn't any logic to an extreme Strength modifier. Halflings can jump, climb, open jars, and stab people with weapons, all within the realm of believability, and with only somewhat less efficiency than a full-sized person.



> Why on earth would appealing to the existance of a fantasy race whose characteristics cannot be really measured have anything to do with how you view the reality of the differences in strength between human men and women?




Because it tells you how the system is benchmarked. Regardless of how you might view the situation, pretty much every edition of D&D says that basically humanoid creatures should be given very conservative Str modifiers in either direction. If men-women sex differences exceed an obvious comparison, like human to halfling, or human to half-orc, that stretches believability. As ability scores are general (definitely) and abstract (necessarily) system benchmarks are very important.

You say you don't apply sex differences in your house rules. I have to speculatate that at some level you agree with the logic that has been presented, but you are unwilling to give ground because you are attached to specific points you want to make. What, exactly, are you trying to tell us pages later into this thread?

To review, I think it has been established that:
- Real-world measures are hard to compare to ability scores, even ones as relatively concrete as Strength
- It's not clear if real-world measures have any bearing on what should be represented in the game
- Even if it does have some bearing, it's not clear how to balance this for PCs
- Even if you knew what you were trying to accomplish, exactly, many games don't offer a fine enough level of detail to handle these things elegantly
- It's probably not worth the effort
- Even if you succeed, you have to ask yourself if what you have gained is worth the negative messages you may be sending to women in the group about what level of participation and freedom to exercise their imagination they can expect
- Even if it's worth it to you, other people are going to balk, for any number of reasons from the top to the bottom of the list. 
- At least one or more of these reasons has already persuaded you, since you don't use such rules in your game

What is there to debate at this point?


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## Umbran (May 14, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Because it tells you how the system is benchmarked. Regardless of how you might view the situation, pretty much every edition of D&D says that basically humanoid creatures should be given very conservative Str modifiers in either direction. If men-women sex differences exceed an obvious comparison, like human to halfling, or human to half-orc, that stretches believability. As ability scores are general (definitely) and abstract (necessarily) system benchmarks are very important.




You have an *excellent* point, here.



> I have to speculatate that at some level you agree with the logic that has been presented




If I may - you have a less excellent point here. No, you don't have to speculate on his state of mind.  Your point is solid enough, you shouldn't undermine it by suggesting somehow you know his mind better than he does.  It makes the fist point weaker by association.


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## Celebrim (May 14, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Why?




Is that a rhetorical question or do you not believe I have a reason?

For one thing, I think that the strength modifier applied to halflings was applied only for the sake of 'playability' without any real in game justification.  It violates the game systems own guidelines for adjusting creatures attribute according to size, which in general state that going down one size involves a -4 penalty to strength and constitution and a +2 bonus to dexterity.  

For another thing, in a nutshell, the house cat vs. commoner problem.  D&D has traditionally minimized the disadvantages of small size to the point that being small is an advantage.  In 1st edition, all large size did for you was make you more vulnerable to the most commonly employed weapons.  In 3rd edition, while there has been something of a nod to realism, being 'small' is often an advantage compared to being 'medium'.  For example, 'small' doesn't have a reach disadvantage, and actually gains a bonus to 'to hit' and AC - two of the most important numbers in the game.  The disadvantage of a small size weapon continues to decrease as the game goes on and the modifiers to damage increasingly outweigh the small random factor of the die throw.  There are some drawbacks (speed and grappling), but not as much as you'd expect for weighing 30lbs.

So while I know all about chimpanzees and caracal's, I don't feel that the small-sized PC races are anything but gamist in construction.  I don't buy into them.  It's just a special case of the house cat problem, and until your system deals with the house cat problem well, I don't think you can scoff to much at my criticism of how it handles size nor are you on that solid of ground when claiming the system is within the realm of believable.



> Because it tells you how the system is benchmarked. Regardless of how you might view the situation, pretty much every edition of D&D says that basically humanoid creatures should be given very conservative Str modifiers in either direction. If men-women sex differences exceed an obvious comparison, like human to halfling, or human to half-orc, that stretches believability.




No, no, no.  It stretches playability.  Don't mix up the needs of the game with the desire for simulation and internal consistancy.



> ]You say you don't apply sex differences in your house rules. I have to speculatate that at some level you agree with the logic that has been presented...




That might be too strong.  I agree that those are valid reasons for not having sex differences in your house rules.  I'm not sure that I agree absolutely within anyone here but myself.  For one thing, my position mechanically holds a middle ground between absolute differences and no differences, and if anything I've been thinking about after reading this thread expanding that middle ground with more options for emphasizing gender difference.  (I even have in mind an idea for a male only feat, and I'm brainstorming for ideas for additional optional gender related traits.)  For another thing, I don't agree as fully with your 'points of agreement' as you seem to agree with them.



> What, exactly, are you trying to tell us pages later into this thread?




To stop judging each other and try to understand each other rather than trying to shut down discussion, to listen, to stop trying to force people to agree with you, and to not pass judgment on people's motives.  And beyond that to the extent that I have 'skin in the game', it's to get people to accept and be comfortable with gender differences so that we don't have to live in fantasy worlds in order to believe that men and women are equal.

There is a quote by GK Chesterton that runs something like: "Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."  I'd be uncomfortable having my daughters read fairy tales where the heroines overcame dragons by main force alone, any more than I'd be comfortable with fairy tales that said strength didn't matter.  Really this trope is as old as dirt.  The oldest version of this story I can think of is Athena and Ares.  Athena represents the feminine virtue of war, and in the stories is held in higher esteem than her brutish but stronger male counterpart.  Athena always bests Ares in battle, not because she is stronger, but because there is more to her than just strength.  If as sexist of a people as the ancient greeks can be comfortable with this, I wonder why we are having so much trouble with it.


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## pawsplay (May 14, 2011)

Umbran said:


> You have an *excellent* point, here.




Thank you.



> If I may - you have a less excellent point here. No, you don't have to speculate on his state of mind.  Your point is solid enough, you shouldn't undermine it by suggesting somehow you know his mind better than he does.  It makes the fist point weaker by association.




It is my experience that it is sometimes less important to be correct, than to be engaged. If the thrust of my argument is orthogonal to the source of the disagreement, I am wasting keystrokes.


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## pawsplay (May 14, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> That might be too strong.  I agree that those are valid reasons for not having sex differences in your house rules.




So what are those reasons? I am interested.



> For another thing, I don't agree as fully with your 'points of agreement' as you seem to agree with them.




I've had a lot of time to think about these issues. I actually went through the effort, a few years ago, of trying to quantify male v. female differences in GURPS and D&D, and the basics of my argument derive from that exercise. The whole +3 relative lifting Str thing was not plucked out of thin air.

Metrics are a very interesting topic to me... as I am a trained psychometrician, who has adminstered a number of I.Q. tests under the supervision of a psychologist, questions of normality and fariness are firmly practical to me and non-hypothetical. 

So it is not that I am firmly persuaded to one point of view, so much as that I have a lot of thoughts I have developed to the point I can present a cogent argument on them. I could, if you wished, present an argument why men should have a +4 overall Strength relative to women, and there is one to be made, but the argument is, in my view substantially weaker, less moral, and has the potential yield less that would be useful.

I am a pragmatist. If my position seems stubborn, it is because the facts, issues, and ideas present a stubborn reality, from my viewpoint. If my opinion seems impassioned, it is because I do feel strongly about it, and I believe, as you do, that the consequences of belief extend far beyond the realm of fantasy.



> There is a quote by GK Chesterton that runs something like: "Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."




Can dragons be killed by women?


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## JamesonCourage (May 14, 2011)

Elf Witch said:


> I can understand wanting realism even in fantasy. But we are playing a game for fun and enjoyment that is why I play. So when you start bringing in restrictions like strength caps or penalties based on being a female character I have to wonder how that bit of realism is more vital to the cause of realism than say having talking dragons.




Let's keep in mind, however, that enjoyment is exceptionally subjective. I think the people in this thread that have been in favor of discussion (and not even necessarily implementation!) are more in the right than those who seem to imply that the discussion should not even take place.

If all you're saying is that it wouldn't be fun for you if you play, then I totally get that. We're on the same page, in that the game wouldn't be right for you. I think it's fair for others to discuss it, however, even if they have no specific rules they are planning on implementing.

As always, play what you like 



> I don't have an issue with gender restrictions to classes in a game. If it is there for world flavor. I have done it in a game I ran. It was based on an Amazon like society where woman were warriors and men were not allowed to become warriors because in the past there war like ways had led them to almost destroying the world.
> 
> I would play in a game that did the opposite and said no female warriors as long as I had other viable choices. As long as it was for this game not every game like the jerky DM who said no female paladins ever in any game he ran.




I'm all for you playing the type of game that appeals to you. Sounds like you have an open mind on the matter. I just don't want the discussion in this thread shut down unnecessarily, when it could lead to interesting results. I think what Celebrim and I have briefly discussed in terms of a (now some-what stackable?) free feat is interesting. I think his implementation of optional character traits that help distinguish the sexes is interesting.

I'd prefer we see what other interesting ways of implementation there can be, without the needless claims of "perceived sexism" by others in this thread (others, as in not from you).

Again, play what you like


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## Elf Witch (May 14, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Let's keep in mind, however, that enjoyment is exceptionally subjective. I think the people in this thread that have been in favor of discussion (and not even necessarily implementation!) are more in the right than those who seem to imply that the discussion should not even take place.
> 
> If all you're saying is that it wouldn't be fun for you if you play, then I totally get that. We're on the same page, in that the game wouldn't be right for you. I think it's fair for others to discuss it, however, even if they have no specific rules they are planning on implementing.
> 
> ...




I don't think the topic should be shut down at all. I for one have found it interesting. I think sex linked feats and optional traits are an intriguing idea. As long as they give some kind of equal but different benefits that are actually used in a game. 

Was it your idea about the different feats? I actually think that is a rather cool idea. And I may do something like that the next time I run a game.

Because of my experience as a female gamer all I am trying to do is point out why stat differences between male and females could be a bad idea and how some female gamers might feel about it.

For example my roommate who games and DMs actually got a little pissy over this topic. It really bugged her a lot. Mainly because she is such a powergamer who likes to play tough female warrior types. She said that she has no desire to go back to the bad old days of gaming. Where she often played a male character to get around the restrictions. 

My rule is this if everybody at the table is having fun and is onboard for house rules then go for it.


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## JamesonCourage (May 14, 2011)

Elf Witch said:


> I don't think the topic should be shut down at all. I for one have found it interesting. I think sex linked feats and optional traits are an intriguing idea. As long as they give some kind of equal but different benefits that are actually used in a game.
> 
> Was it your idea about the different feats? I actually think that is a rather cool idea. And I may do something like that the next time I run a game.




I was saying maybe men should gain a free feat, something like Athletic. Women could gain something like Endurance. Celebrim pointed out that it might be better to make the feat semi-stackable. For example, men get Athletic. If they take it again, they get another +1 on each skill. Women get Endurance, and if they take it again, they get another +1 on all Con checks (or +2, up to your preference).

As a female character, I can take Athletic if I want, and I'll be equal to a male unless he takes the same feat, which gives him only a very slight edge. Vise versa for males taking the Endurance feat.

Of course, the actual feats chosen are a subject that could do with some fleshing out. I don't think I'd say Athletic and Endurance are equal.



> Because of my experience as a female gamer all I am trying to do is point out why stat differences between male and females could be a bad idea and how some female gamers might feel about it.
> 
> For example my roommate who games and DMs actually got a little pissy over this topic. It really bugged her a lot. Mainly because she is such a powergamer who likes to play tough female warrior types. She said that she has no desire to go back to the bad old days of gaming. Where she often played a male character to get around the restrictions.




I really appreciate you being so constructive about this, because it really is about enjoyment. Getting different perspectives will -I think- help flesh out how something could be implemented well, as compared to implemented poorly.



> My rule is this if everybody at the table is having fun and is onboard for house rules then go for it.




I agree


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## AeroDm (May 14, 2011)

I think folks often forget how much less stuff mattered in older versions of D&D. The difference between an 8 strength and a 16 strength with regards to hit probability was nothing. No difference. Today, that same gap would represent 20% of the entire variation the game allows. 

Introducing gender variations under those conditions was fun; it added to the mystique of the game. The game today is different and is not as accommodating to such house rules. Fortunately, it has other strengths to balance it out.


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## outsider (May 14, 2011)

The question should be whether this particular aspect of verisimilitude is worth alienating 50% of your potential audience.   Nearly everybody that has tried to make money off of RPGs has wisely decided it isn't worth it.  As somebody that has gamed with plenty of women over the years, I also don't think it's worth it.  To be frank, you'll get more believably feminine characters by having women play your game than you will by trying to codify femininity with game mechanics.


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## S'mon (May 14, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Obviously, we need a separate set of racial modifiers for Nordic characters in RPGs.




Check out the OGL Conan game.  They even give the crypto-Irish Cimmerians an INT penalty!!


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## S'mon (May 14, 2011)

Mallus said:


> We aren't talking about real-world strength differences between women and men. We're talking about whether it's okay for _Red Sonja_ to be as strong as _Conan_




In 3e, which was still somewhat simulationist, I said 'no', and handled it by statting my Red Sonja type PC with STR 16, my Conan type PC with STR 18.  This gave a minimal degree of versimilitude while keeping Red a playable PC, with Point Buy I could give her a higher DEX than Conan; her better AC matched his better attack/damage.  From what I saw other players both male and female typically took a similar approach.

With 4e I regard it as a dissociated game, the attributes are meaningless numbers except for the modifiers they provide, so I'd give both my Red Sonja and Conan Fighter PCs a 'Strength' attribute of 20, but I don't regard that number as saying much about the actually in-world strength of the characters.  Conan is presumably stronger than Red, but at the same level they would have the same ability to lift hunks of rock, hack up enemies, and other things affected by the 'Strength' attribute.


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## S'mon (May 14, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Regardless of how you might view the situation, pretty much every edition of D&D says that basically humanoid creatures should be given very conservative Str modifiers in either direction.




Except 3e-3.5e Orcs, who get a ridiculous +4 STR mod.  I'm guessing because half-Orcs got +2 and the weak-minded designer thought Orcs then needed to have double.  This one mistake caused me a lot of trouble, with 3e Orcs massacring low-level PCs and outshining supposedly much bigger & more fearsome critters like gnolls.  3.5 made it even worse by raising the default Orc mook's STR from 15 to 17.


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## El Mahdi (May 14, 2011)

Elf Witch said:


> I have no experience with 4 ED so when someone says use dex instead of strength I look at it from a 3.5 point of view. And in my opinion dex based fighters have a lot of disadvantages in that system. Now if they are being allowed to use that to hit and do damage and wear decent armor then I would have no issue. My big issue in 3.5 with dex fighters is the armor issue. Without magic to boost up your ac you are stuck with chain as the best you can do.
> 
> I played a dex based fighter in a low magic game and after awhile it stopped being fun. I got tired of being hit because of my lower AC. Where the tanks in heavy armor were able to go toe to toe with the bad guys.




I don't really have any experience with 4E either, other than mining it for ideas.  I bought the core books, excited about what I had read about the new edition, but found when I read it that it didn't have the overall feel that I wanted.  But there are some really inspired and genius bits in it (IMO anyways) that I have shamelessly stolen...the part about choosing from different abilities for modifiers is one of them.  With the abstractness of D&D mechanics (in any edition), it really makes sense.  In real-life, combat effectiveness is soooooo not limited by just Strength or Dexterity...and Strength and Dexterity, though able to be quantified independently to a certain extent, are too intertwined with eachother to be entirely independent.  If I could find or develop a _simple_ mechanic that combines or inter-relates Stength and Dexterity (and Constitution also), yet keeps them seperated for appropriate situations and uses, I'd be very happy (and maybe make a bit of money marketing a new system...though probably not).

In a real fight, there are so many factors it's nearly impossible to truly quantify with any mechanical representation, and definitely impractical (which is why we have the simple abstract mechanics of RPG's).  But that idea from 4E goes quite a ways in making it a little better.  I even allow the use of Intelligence for combat bonuses depending on the character and class (I don't remember if 4E does this also, but it might).  In real fights there are such things as overwhelming force (superior Strength) and untouchable speed (superior Dexterity), but I've found that Intelligence is just as important (if not even more important).  The saying: _"It's not the size of the Dog in the Fight, it's the size of the Fight in the Dog"_, is true to a certain extent.  Though IMO the saying should be: _"It's not the size of the Dog in the Fight that matters most, it's what the dog *Knows *that counts!"_.  In my experience, Intelligence determines the outcome of a conflict more often than anything else.

My opinions on this though, is why I agree completely that even in real-life, Women are no less efficient warriors than Men.  It's unfortunate that we haven't gotten past this false assumption as concerns women in combat.  Militarily, we're purposely ignoring an incredible untapped pool of warriors.  It's even more absurd in todays combat environments, where there really is no such thing as a _"frontline"_ anymore.  The admin guy or girl sitting in their administrative tent on camp, is just as much in the line of fire as a soldier on patrol in the streets.  US Military training has changed in the last decade in response to this exact thing.  The US Air Force has added hand-to-hand combat training to the Basic Training Program for the first time in it's history, and IED recognition and terrorism awareness is now taught to everybody in every branch - whether an admin troop or infantry...yet we can't seem to get past this idea that Women can't fight...  Besides, it only takes a couple pounds of pressure to pull a trigger.  I've encountered Women that before training, were naturally better shots than most untrained Men I know (smoother pulls, less wandering due to heart rate, breathing, etc.).  I hate to say it but even after my 21 years in the military, I've found that my wife is a better shot than me with just a couple of lessons!

But Yeah, instituting a mechanic for differentiation between sexes in 3E, without modifying other mechanics also, would be incredibly unfair, and even create a less realistic system.  If there's any one thing I've learned from houserule tinkering, it's that you have to look at how a new mechanic is going to effect all the other aspects of the system.  It's kind of like a complex equation.  Change one value even a little bit, and it can significantly effect the entire equation.



Elf Witch said:


> I also played one is 3.0 game where the DM changed how armor and damage worked. Basically armor took off points of damage and dex made you harder to hit. So a plate wearing tank got hit more often but took less damage and the dex light armor got hit a lot less but it hurt more when they got hit hard. That made playing a dex based fighter a lot more fun.




Sounds a lot more realistic too.

I've done the same thing before also, basically by just adding the Armor as Damage Reduction rule (from Unearthed Arcana) and enforcing the Maximum Dexterity factor of Armors.  But I kept running into a few problems.  First - although armor is more something that keeps you from getting hurt as opposed to getting hit, it does still do that to a certain extent.  So even using DR, I decided on still including at least a small bonus to Defense for Armor.  Secondly - adding such things highlighted even more, D&D's lack of Defensive improvement.  A characters ability to attack someone improves, but they never get better at defending themselves, all they can do is get better and better armor.  So, I added in the Defensive Progression from Unearthed Arcana also.  Thirdly and most problematic though (at least for me and my group), we kept having problems with remembering to subtract the DR from damage taken.  So, I incorporated a houserule where Armor increases your total Hit Points by a certain percentage when worn (and decreases by the same percentage when removed), so it's already factored in and doesn't have to be remembered every time a character (or NPC) is attacked.  Of course though, that changed how a number of other things worked (like healing), which necessitated some other changes...though I think I have it all worked out now (and still kept gameplay quick and simple...at least so far).

But yeah, without making adjustments to other mechanics like this, just adding a mechanic to ability scores for modeling differences between the sexes can cause a lot of significant problems...and it definitely plays as unfair.



Elf Witch said:


> As a player I don't have an issue with the DM wanting to try something different like cap abilities or forbid certain classes or races. As long as it is aimed at all the PCs not just a few of them.




I agree.



Elf Witch said:


> I played in the early days of 1 ED and I have to tell you that a lot of the stuff that went on left a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to some of this. I saw it as an excuse a lot of DM used to penalize female characters because the idea that a woman would be as good a fighter as a man was just unbelievable.




I came a little later to the party (despite my age) and actually started towards the end of AD&D 2E, so I don't have any experience with that.  If I recall correctly, I don't remember things like that in 2E - or if there was, the group I played with must have houseruled that all out (I was just a noobie then, but we had three women in our group, and another couple that would play when they were in town, and I don't remember any of them mentioning this - and they definitely would have if those mechanics were in force).  But I have read over a few earlier editions as my interest in the game has grown, and yeah, there's some mechanics in those older editions that really make me scratch my head as to why they were ever included or took the form they did.  I'm not saying earlier editions are worse than any other edition - all editions have their warts - but some of those are real head scratchers.



Elf Witch said:


> As someone who has experienced it I am going to say that it is wrong to do it in a standard fantasy game. It may not be sexist in the pure sense of the word but it has the potential to marginalize female characters for no other reason than it might make the game a little more realistic.




I disagree with you a bit here.  I probably wouldn't want such a thing in a straight fantasy game either, but I don't think it's wrong for those that do - as long as the impact on other mechanics is also addressed and an overall fairness/balance is maintained.  But in the case of that not happening, I would assume it's more a case of just bad houserule design, rather than any inappropriate intention.  But if not done right, I agree with you, IMO it would marginalize female characters...and I don't see that as being any fun at all either.



Elf Witch said:


> In one game I played in all one session there was a lot of rape of female characters. The DM based it on realism because rape by conquering forces was fairly common, sadly it is a tactic still being used by some armed forces. It was very tasteless and made me and the other girl at the table very uncomfortable.
> 
> In another game female characters had str, and int penalties because at that time it was thought that men were smarter than woman because of math and science. The only advantage female characters got was a plus to seduction.
> 
> It was things like this that made me quit gaming and when I came back I only played superhero games where you didn't have to deal with this stuff. I didn't start playing DnD again until 1995.




There's just no other way to say it other than I find that type of behavior simply disgusting and completely unacceptable.  I would have immediately walked out on any game like that (though probably not before bluntly telling the DM what I though of him and his upbringing) - or if I knew about it ahead of time, I would have never participated.  One can have realism without needing to descend into such debased areas.  If addressed up front this was going to be included in a game, and the whole group agrees, I can't say that playing such a game is wrong...but I wouldn't be a part of it.  Interestingly, I actually address this in my houserules:




> *Keep it Clean* – This game is rated PG-13.  I’ll run it that way, I expect everyone to play it that way also.  We can have an adult game without having to devolve into the darker aspects of human behavior.  I realize the World can be a very brutal place, and I’ll run this campaign as realistically as possible – but there is no place in this campaign for any form of rape, graphic torture, or abuse.  I see no value or enjoyment in exploring such things for entertainment.  Please respect that, and respect your fellow players.



 



Elf Witch said:


> My conversation with my son was based on this entire thread not just what you said. I am sorry if that was miscommunicated on my part. And we were talking about standard DnD games.




No apology necessary.  If what I posted came across as an accusation, I apologize.  I was just trying to ascertain what he knew of the conversation here, in order to put his response in context.  I don't have any issues with his or your views on this.  There are very few things that are absolutely wrong or right in this world, and those that are usually involve life and death.  So even though I don't share the same opinion, I also don't think you're wrong.  And I've found this whole thread/discussion quite worthwhile (even when I got my hackles up a bit...).



Elf Witch said:


> I don't want to give the impression that I would not be interested in hearing what you would want to do if you invited me to your table. Actually as a player I am very flexible and willing to work with the DM on helping make his concept come to life. What you described does not sound like you are trying to marginalize female fighters or fighters in general. I would not have an issue that I can't lift as much weight as a male character as long as I am just as good in combat and can kick butt and take names with the rest of the fighters.




Well, once I finally get my act together on this, I'll be sure to let you know.  Until then, Game On!


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## Celebrim (May 15, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I could, if you wished, present an argument why men should have a +4 overall Strength relative to women, and there is one to be made, but the argument is, in my view substantially weaker, *less moral*, and has the potential yield less that would be useful.




You see, that's the end of the thread as far as I'm concerned.  If the other side of the debate sees your position as being immoral, there is little I can do to effect that stand.  And frankly, on an issue which is ultimately trivial - I never once played a 1e character that had more than 18/50 strength and the only ones I ever saw with that strength score got there by applying the Unearthed Arcana method and then cheating to boot - neither do I care to try.



> Can dragons be killed by women?




That, like so many of your questions to me, is a fundamentally dishonest and uncharitable one.  I tire of addressing your insinuations and snears in a fashion better than they deserve.


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## Hussar (May 15, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Absolutely.  I live with a couple of them.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




First off, a full grown chimpanzee is a heck of a lot bigger than 60 pounds.  



			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> Adults in the wild weigh between 40 and 65 kg (88 and 140 lb), though males in captivity such as Travis the Chimp have reached 200 pounds




That's about TWICE the size of a halfling at least.  That's actually really, really close to normal human sized.  It would help if people's view of what is "realistic" was actually backed by facts.


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## Hussar (May 15, 2011)

Me, I'd leave this entirely in the hands of the player.  If you, as a player, want to play a female character and want to be weaker than a male character because it makes you happy, more power to you.  If you feel that Red Sonja shouldn't be as strong as Conan, don't put that 18 in strength.

What I don't want is the DM or the game designers trying to tell me that a game, particularly D&D, which has such a rough grained stat system, that there is as much difference in strength between a human male and human female on average as there is between a human and a gnome or halfling.

In my mind, the system simply lacks the granularity to make this sort of differentiation plausible.


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## Celebrim (May 15, 2011)

Hussar said:


> First off, a full grown chimpanzee is a heck of a lot bigger than 60 pounds.




Sure.  I don't deny that, nor are you informing me of anything I don't know.  I'm just pointing out that a 88lb chimpanzee is roughly as strong as 250 lb NFL linebacker.  And a large chimpanzee with weight equivalent to human norms is stronger than the strongest possible human.  Therefore, it's not unreasonable to conclude that a simian weighing 60lb or even 40lb could have nearly human strength depending on whether its build was more like a chimpanzee than a human.  Obviously, with a human build, a 40lb humanoid is going to have much more than than a -2 STR penalty.  Ergo, it must be the case that the Halfling, if we accept the -2 STR penalty as realistic, has a build more similar to a chimpanzee than a human.

Seriously, Hussar, I know you are intelligent enough to understand that line of reasoning.  Why in the world are you making such a spurious objection as to point out that chimpanzees weigh more than 60lb?



> That's about TWICE the size of a halfling at least.  That's actually really, really close to normal human sized.  It would help if people's view of what is "realistic" was actually backed by facts.




Exactly what part of my point isn't backed up by facts or is unrealistic?  Are you suggesting that there aren't 60lb animals with strength roughly equivalent to human norms?   Are you suggesting that regardless of the body build, any 60lb animal is going to have the same physical characteristics?


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## JamesonCourage (May 15, 2011)

Hussar said:


> First off, a full grown chimpanzee is a heck of a lot bigger than 60 pounds.
> 
> That's about TWICE the size of a halfling at least.  That's actually really, really close to normal human sized.  It would help if people's view of what is "realistic" was actually backed by facts.




I'm pretty certain the actual point was not the height or weight of the chimpanzee. It was the strength of the chimpanzee compared to the height and weight of a comparable race (say, humans?).

Since you used the source:



			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> The male common chimp is up to 1.7 metres (5.6 ft) high when standing, and weighs as much as 70 kilograms (150 lb)




Considering chimpanzees are anywhere from twice to five times as strong as humans (sources and scientific opinion varies in my quick google search), and they are very close in height and weight to humans, I can only assume that similar musculature could conceivably be found in halflings, if one was so inclined to flavor them that way.

If you don't like the flavor, don't use it. But, it's clear that chimpanzees, which are similar in height and weight to that of humans, are much stronger. You could easily apply the same idea to halflings.

I'd rather get back to the much more productive discussion on optional character traits or free semi-stackable feats (or anything else someone had in mind).

As always, play what you like


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## Hussar (May 15, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Sure.  I don't deny that, nor are you informing me of anything I don't know.  I'm just pointing out that a 88lb chimpanzee is roughly as strong as 250 lb NFL linebacker.  And a large chimpanzee with weight equivalent to human norms is stronger than the strongest possible human.  Therefore, it's not unreasonable to conclude that a simian weighing 60lb or even 40lb could have nearly human strength depending on whether its build was more like a chimpanzee than a human.  Obviously, with a human build, a 40lb humanoid is going to have much more than than a -2 STR penalty.  Ergo, it must be the case that the Halfling, if we accept the -2 STR penalty as realistic, has a build more similar to a chimpanzee than a human.
> 
> Seriously, Hussar, I know you are intelligent enough to understand that line of reasoning.  Why in the world are you making such a spurious objection as to point out that chimpanzees weigh more than 60lb?
> 
> ...




Yes, I am saying that there are 60 lb animals that by and large do not have the strength of a 180 pound human.

You cannot simply scale up or down and apply strength.  That doesn't work.  It's that whole square cube thing.  A 100 pound human isn't half as strong as a 200 pound one, nor is a 50 pound human 1/4 as strong.  There's an awful lot more to it than that.

Or, put it another way.  A fairly decent benchmark would say that a normal human should be able to lift at the very least, his own bodyweight onto his shoulders.  So, a normal human can, by and large, lift about 150 pounds onto his shoulders, fireman carry style, and walk some distance.

Let's see a 60 pound animal lift 150 pounds and move.

Strength is not relative in games - it's absolute.  Just because a creature can lift its own bodyweight (or even more) is irrelavent.  It's all about totals.

There are way too many reasons why you cannot just scale up or down - biology just doesn't work that way.

And, again, we're talking about a system where there is very, very little gradation from normal to strongest - in 3e, we're only talking 4 steps - person you can be without magical augmentation.


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## Mark CMG (May 15, 2011)

How strong is a chimpanzee, really? - By John Hawks - Slate Magazine


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## Celebrim (May 15, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Yes, I am saying that there are 60 lb animals that by and large do not have the strength of a 180 pound human.




Except that isn't what I asked you.  I didn't ask you if there were 60lb animals weaker than humans, that question is uninteresting and the answer is intuitive.  No, I asked you if you wanted to insist that there weren't 60lb animals as a strong as humans.  

Apparantly you don't think that there are.



> Let's see a 60 pound animal lift 150 pounds and move.




Let's look at a few animals that have average weights below that of average humans:

"In search of safety, leopards often stash their young or recent kills high up in a tree. They were observed hauling carcasses of young giraffe, estimated to weigh up to 125 kg (280 lb), 2–3 times the weight of the leopard, up to 5.7 m (19 ft) into trees."  - wikipedia

Granted there is overlap between humans and leopards in terms of size, but I think that it is well established that pound for pound leopards are stronger than humans.

Caracals are much smaller animals than leopards but they are capable of proportionally similar feats.  On the opposite end, jagaurs are a bit heavier than a leapord but also capable of proportionally similar feat (climbing while lifting three times there own body weight).

And then there is the chimpanzee I've previously mentioned.  Chimps tend to be smaller than humans.  A big male chimp is right around the weight of an average male human, while atheletic humans often reach 270lbs or more.  But for whatever number you select as reasonable for a human to lift and move with, chimpanzees of the same weight can lift and move twice that.  

Definitively answering your challenge is difficult mainly because the strengths of likely 40-60 lb animals (lynx, caracal, wolverine) have been poorly studied.  The one that has been well studied (the dog) is not one I would have picked for being exceptionally strong because like humans it is an endurance predator, and in any event it was hard to come up with data for humans performing the same tasks dogs are normally measured at.  However, I think it is clear that 40-60 lb dogs are much stronger than 40-60 lb human children, so comparing halflings to human 5 year olds is far from a valid comparison.


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## JamesonCourage (May 15, 2011)

I find the currently debated topic amusing. "Can small creatures be strong for their size?" is pretty funny to me when it's obviously applicable in real life, and in a game where we don't question how a giant is capable of walking, much less fighting.

Can we get back to interesting implementations of gender differences, such as the optional character traits or semi-stackable free feats?


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## pawsplay (May 15, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> However, I think it is clear that 40-60 lb dogs are much stronger than 40-60 lb human children, so comparing halflings to human 5 year olds is far from a valid comparison.




Five year old humans are not mature beings. Halflings are. Just because a middle schooler might be 5'3" doesn't mean he's as strong as the guy who does the landscaping. The 5 year old human to halfling comparison would not be my choice.

Now, if you are modeling bull rushes, or some kind of knockdown/knockback mechanic....


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## pawsplay (May 15, 2011)

S'mon said:


> Except 3e-3.5e Orcs, who get a ridiculous +4 STR mod.  I'm guessing because half-Orcs got +2 and the weak-minded designer thought Orcs then needed to have double.  This one mistake caused me a lot of trouble, with 3e Orcs massacring low-level PCs and outshining supposedly much bigger & more fearsome critters like gnolls.  3.5 made it even worse by raising the default Orc mook's STR from 15 to 17.




That was clearly a violation of the principle I stated, with the consequences following predictably.


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## pawsplay (May 15, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Can dragons be killed by women?
> 
> That, like so many of your questions to me, is a fundamentally dishonest and uncharitable one.  I tire of addressing your insinuations and snears in a fashion better than they deserve.




On the contrary, it is an honest question, and my curiosity is pretty charitible. I would really like to know how you address this question. Sadly, it appears you are refusing to do so.


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## pawsplay (May 15, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Can we get back to interesting implementations of gender differences, such as the optional character traits or semi-stackable free feats?




I call this *the Wal-Mart problem.*

Imagine you want to buy canned peaches and toilet seat lids. If Wal-Mart charges more than Home Depot, you'll buy the toilet seat lid at Home Depot. If they charge less, you'll obviously buy it at Wal-Mart (all other things being equal, of course). But what if you want peaches, too? You can't buy peaches at Home Depot. So unless the price difference of the peaches at Wal-Mart exceeds the price difference of the toilet seat lids, you go to Wal-Mart and save yourself a trip to the grocery store. Not only are you shopping at Wal-Mart, but pretty soon, they are the only place in town selling peaches, and the price of peaches has gone up.

So let's imagine you define sex-linked feats or options. If a male-specific feat is worse than feats in general, no one will take it. If it's better, you're going to see a lot more male (for instance) warriors, as you might expect. But let's imagine the male-specific feat is well-balanced against other feats, in general. So you have the choice of playing a male, with the choice of all feats in general, plus the sex-linked feat, or a female, who has only the choice of all feats in general, plus a different, unrelated female-linked feat. If you decide you want the male-linked feat, you will (all other things being equal) play the male.

Assuming the intention is to give males options to be particularly strong, powerful, and intimidating, and for women to be, oh, alluring, high stamina, and smaller-but-nimble... the buying options for a warrior favor being male. You can get toilet seats AND peaches. It's likely, as well, that swashbucklers and face characters will skew female (which could be weird, if swashbuckling females are a social aberration in your setting). 

These options are better than flat-out modifiers simply because they are smaller. Opportunity costs are real costs, but the compensation is sufficient that other options are considerable. But, for instance, even a small cost can skew results such that (for instance) two-handed Power Attack fighters skew male, while dual-wielding tumbling fighters skew female. They are also better because someone can choose not to exercise their options, which means they are not forcibly pigeonholed into a stereotype. But the advantages and disadvantages will remain. Only character options which are favored by neither set of optional traits will be unaffected. And for the affected options, which will be many if not most, the options will only be optional if they are truly competitive with a different set of options which are favored by neither set of optional modifiers. 

And ultimately, if one option is simply better, the nerf hammer is not far behind, unless you simply choose to live with the bias.


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## JamesonCourage (May 15, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I call this *the Wal-Mart problem.*




Cool. What did you think of what we actually discussed?


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## Jon_Dahl (May 15, 2011)

Just a small note to whomever protested against the fact that I used the word "gender".

I just didn't want to use the word "sex" in the thread title. Please forgive me.

Carry on.


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## pawsplay (May 15, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Cool. What did you think of what we actually discussed?




Let's look at the half-feat bonus thing. Say, males get Athletic, or +1 bonus on top of athletic. 

If you want Athletic + a different trait, males have a lower opportunity cost
If you want Athletic + whatever trait females can snag, males and females are equivalent
If you don't want Athletic, males have a higher opportunity cost
If you want to be an especially athletic male, you pay the same cost for a lower relative benefit of any other character choosing a feat, but it's the only game in town (you pay more for the peaches)

So what's the end result:
If you want to play an athletic character who also does Y, you would prefer a male. Unless you also want to do X (female bonus trait), in which case it's a wash.
If you want to play a maximally athletic character, you play a male. Except almost no one plays maximally athletic characters, since it's disproportionately expensive for the benefit.
This leads to the result that most athletic characters are male, but female characters who are athletic are no less athletic than the vast majority of athletic characters. A few outlier males surpass them.

Are you satisfied with this result? It both discourages female characters and gives them a lower maximum potential compared to male characters, while at the same time not actually representing a real mathematical difference in the majority of affected characters. But it does it to a small degree. The cost is exacted against some characters not not others. The opportunity cost for females is quite high; rather than Athletic, wouldn't most fighters prefer to simply snag another combat feat?

If you want to run a game where women are "differently able" then I think you have found your solution. Only determined players will attempt to make a female character who is the physical equivalent to a man. Only sufficiently determined players will create male characters who are physically superior to those determined players, but they can do so. My feeling is that, socially and psychologically, this reinforces the "no girls allowed" meme that female players probably already experience. 

I'd probably prefer to simply assign a half-strength bonus, just +1 to Climb and Swim, for instance. Now females still have a lower maximum, as before, but they don't pay a special price for choosing to be more athletic (and they are more athletic than non-athletic males) and males aren't penalized if they want to be especially athletic.

Simply giving men and women a bonus feat, chosen from a list, is also a fairly soft approach, so long as each list has some actually good options in it. 

There really is no getting around the question of whether you want there to be a hard cap difference or not, or an opportunity cost to playing a gender-transgressive concept or not.


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## JamesonCourage (May 15, 2011)

Well, as far as I can tell, you're telling me that if I make there be a mechanical difference between the sexes, then people could theoretically optimize one to be better than the other. And that, depending on how I do it (hard cap versus soft bonus), it's either very heavy-handed or it's pretty hands-off.

But, those seem like really obvious things to point out. So, I guess I'm missing the majority of your point on this one.

I think that a misc. +1 to Climb and Swim for males and a misc. +2 bonus on all checks that Endurance gives a bonus on to females is near-literally the same thing as giving them the feat and letting them take the feat again for half the effect, except that the bonuses are initially halved. I'm not against that at all. If that seems more appropriate, I have no problem with it.

If, however, the problem in your mind arises from when one sex can be mechanically superior to another in any field, than I don't see how pointing that out is too productive in a thread theoretically dedicated to rationally exploring possible differences.

If you have more good ideas or suggestions on possible ways to create a mechanical difference between the sexes that is fairly light-handed, I'm very interested.

Edit: I'd also point out that in my example (Endurance versus Athletic), I'm not actually saying who is the better athlete. Males would be better at climbing and swimming, certainly, but women would be much better at endurance competitions. Both are superior athletes in different areas under the very briefly discussed "free feat" concept.


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## pawsplay (May 15, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> But, those seem like really obvious things to point out. So, I guess I'm missing the majority of your point on this one.




My point is that it may be possible that in your quest to delineate what you perceive to be the realistic differences between sexes, you will create differences in characters which do not reflect expectations based on the real world. For instance, it would not be much like our real world if fighters are typically male while rogues are typically female. In the real world, women have been underrepresented in adventuring professions, and in fact in the majority of professions of important not related to domestic science or implied or actual copulation. If you want to delineate real world differences in activities, you have to make the game unfair to female characters. If you insist on some measure of "realism" but then you apply the "realism" in a fair way, you end up with a fairness which is unreal. In history, rogues, bards, and monks were not typically female, even though it's quite reasonable to suppose that women gain a bonus to Tumble and some sort of bonus to interaction skills that is favorable to them at least in some scenarios. 

An increase in detail does not always result in an increase in precision. 

In this case I am really struck by how different PCs are from average people. It takes a lot of storytelling to explain why women are not as often cat burglars, despite being more petite and flexible. We know that in the real world, most cat burglars have been men. We can pretty much toss realism out the window here. Reality doesn't agree with our limited model. Real world people are not optimized along the same dimensions as RPG characters.

Do you want PC fighters to be disportionately male? Do you want cat burglars to be disproportionately female?

Which brings us back to this: is there some advantage to the game in favoring one concept over another, based on gender? Is it better in some way than simply offering both conceptual differences as options, and letting the player decide which option best fits their character, irrespective of gender?

If, on the other hand, you want to be realistic, "fair" goes out the window. In the real world, some concepts do fit more neatly with nature. Men can throw baseballs. Women can do things on parallel bars. The mechanics of those tasks, specifically, speak for themselves. Thus, in D&D, it makes sense that men could carry more weight by Strength, while women are better at surviving famine... mind you, carrying stuff comes up a lot more often that famine!

There is a whole list I could make of things that men or women are NOT better at in an appreciable way. Neither is better at math in a consistent and holistic sense. Neither is better at multi-tasking, although women do it more often (meaning that men more often screw up by focusing when they should be multi-tasking, while women are more likely to screw up by multi-tasking when focusing would be more efficient). Neither has better "pain tolerance" whatever that means; pain has only a limited relationship to physiological distress; it is primarily a psychological phenomenon. The same woman who gives birth to three children might balk at getting her ribs cracked in a friendly game of football. Men and women both achieve in every art and science. Both succeed at almost all professions to some extent; I know a male midwife. Neither is more "right-brained" or "left-braineD" whatever that means; women tend to use more decentralized thinking, but A) that is only a typicality, not a universality (i.e. not true of all or even necessarily most men and women) and B) brain activity obviously involves strategy choices as well as physiology, and men and women are socialized to approach problems differently. Neither is more verbally adept, although women develop their conversational skills sooner and use them more as adults; women are not however better listeners. Women and men both are capable of anger, cruelty, and bullying. Although the top shootists are men, I can't discern any reason to believe women are not as good or nearly so at aiming and firing a gun. Neither is better at withstanding G-forces; women can (on average) take more acceleration change but men tend to have more upper body strength helping them withstand more acceleration absolutely; of course exercise softens both differences (cardio health for men, upper body muscular structure for women). It's doubtful they differ much in empathy, although women are often perceived to be more empatic.

A handful of actual differences: women survive famines better. They live longer. They are more flexible, and stay that way longer, on average. They are more prone to depression (although there are reasons to suspect social factors rather than physiology, or in addition to). Women can give birth. They have fewer sex-linked genetic disorders. Women can produce milk. Men have more upper body strength. They also have the ability to rotate their shoulders with more momentum. Men are more prone to schizophrenia, and autism. They not uncommonly inherit sex-linked genetic disorders like color blindness and male pattern baldness. They can impregnate multiple women. They have a longer stride. Men continue to grow in height and musculature well into their twenties, and could gain muscle even into their 40s if active. Men are capable of reproduction until almost the end of their lives.  Boys are more kinetic when young, take longer to potty train, and develop vocabulary more slowly until later in life. Men grow beards and more body hair. 

The only differences I would find even potentially _useful_ in a game, setting aside the cost-benefit discussion that has already been highlighted, would be men's greater lifting capabity and throwing ability, and women's greater stamina under extreme conditions and greater flexibility.  .... That would be a wash for 3e rogues, monks, and barbarians, but would favor male fighters, male halflings, and female rangers. 

I'm just not sure I see the benefit of letting women be Alluring, but not men be Dashing, each granting some kind of social skill bonus, or men be Powerful but women not being Agile, each granting some kind of melee attack bonus.


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## pawsplay (May 15, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Edit: I'd also point out that in my example (Endurance versus Athletic), I'm not actually saying who is the better athlete. Males would be better at climbing and swimming, certainly, but women would be much better at endurance competitions. Both are superior athletes in different areas under the very briefly discussed "free feat" concept.




I think you end up with an odd situation where rangers are gender-neutral, while fighters and barbarians are more likely to be female, and rogues male. Rogues are not likely to be distance runners but are likely to climb and swim. Fighters and barbarians can generate high enough Climb and Swim numbers if they choose, but free Endurance (and hence sleeping in armor) is hard to pass up. Female rangers get slightly taxed at 3rd level when they get Endurance a second time, but men can't match them in potential. 

Many horizon walkers would be female, as would many defenders. The tale of the Marathon run, in this world, would probably involve a female runner.

The situation is a little odd because in real life, hard training tends to reduce gender differences for complex tasks. However, specific athletic feats may accentuate differences, such as males power lifting, or females doing gymnastics, because physiology is so important for such an optimized task.


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## Nightson (May 15, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> It's doubtful they differ much in empathy, although women are often perceived to be more empatic.




Study mention time.  I don't have the citation but the relevant details should be googalable should anyone desire. 

Researchers invited people in for an experiment.  They were told there was a problem and they had to wait in the waiting room for about five minutes.  The people engaged in small talk.

Then the researchers invited them back, gave them video of their conversation.  They were shown themselves and asked to stop and note down anytime they remembered feeling a particular though or emotion.

Videos were then switched and people were shown the footage of the other person with the video stopping where they had noted an emotion.  Then they had to write down what they thought the other person was feeling.

And the results of this study showed... no gender difference at all.  But!  The tale is not over.  While they continued to find no gender difference a few more times and in different countries, all of a sudden the gender difference was present, women were outscoring men where they had been equal before.

What changed?  A question was added to the test asking the participants to rate how accurate they felt they were.  That reminder that women are supposed to be the emphatic ones was all it took to create an actual difference in results.


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## Fifth Element (May 15, 2011)

Nightson said:


> What changed?  A question was added to the test asking the participants to rate how accurate they felt they were.  That reminder that women are supposed to be the emphatic ones was all it took to create an actual difference in results.



I was reading about something similar recently, about girls' performance in math tests. Before taking the test, girls read a story which included many gender-stereotypical roles for females. Their results from the subsequent math test were significantly worse from the control of when they did not have such a story before a test. Reminding them that they're not supposed to be good at math made them worse at math.


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## Celebrim (May 15, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> On the contrary, it is an honest question...




No, it's not.  

Let's look at the paragraph again:



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> There is a quote by GK Chesterton that runs something like: "Fairy tales do not tell *children* the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed." I'd be uncomfortable having *my daughters* read fairy tales where*the heroines overcame dragons* by main force alone, any more than I'd be comfortable with fairy tales that said strength didn't matter. Really this trope is as old as dirt. The oldest version of this story I can think of is Athena and Ares. Athena represents the feminine virtue of war, and in the stories is held in higher esteem than her brutish but stronger male counterpart. *Athena always bests Ares in battle*, not because she is stronger, but because there is more to her than just strength. If as sexist of a people as the ancient greeks can be comfortable with this, I wonder why we are having so much trouble with it.




Now, for the question to be honest, there would have to be some reasonable belief that I might answer the question either yes or no.  There is in my opinion no possible way to read what I said and be confused over my position with respect to the possibility of women defeating dragons whether in fantasy or metaphorically in reality.



> ...and my curiosity is pretty charitible.




Principle of charity

Do you still insist that you are interpreting what I said in the strongest possible light, that having read my statements you ask the question, "Can girls defeat dragons?"  Honestly, is there any way to interpret that statement in a less charitable fashion than to ask me whether I think girls can defeat dragons?  One does not immediately come to mind.



> I would really like to know how you address this question.




Anyone with the slightest bit of interest in what I actually wrote wouldn't have to ask how I answer the question.



> Sadly, it appears you are refusing to do so.




Yes, I do refuse to answer such a question.  It is insulting and I have no intention of dignifying it.


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## pawsplay (May 15, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> I was reading about something similar recently, about girls' performance in math tests. Before taking the test, girls read a story which included many gender-stereotypical roles for females. Their results from the subsequent math test were significantly worse from the control of when they did not have such a story before a test. Reminding them that they're not supposed to be good at math made them worse at math.




Right. And African-American males, across the board, starting getting higher test scores the year Barack Obama became president. 

And keep in mind that athletic achievements are well known to be affected by psychological effects.


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## El Mahdi (May 15, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I call this *the Wal-Mart problem...*




That was an excellent analysis, and presents an unintentional consequence I hadn't thought of.  Definitely food for thought.


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## Aus_Snow (May 15, 2011)

I find it endlessy amusing that, despite the inevitable array of male would-be white knights trembling with righteous indignation, I've known for quite some time now a number of female gamers - including a prominent CRPG modder, many a roleplayer (among them, a couple of superb DMs), and assorted others - who not only have no issues with statistical differences between the sexes and the recognition of these in games, but have _added them in themselves_, where they have deemed it necessary or desirable to do so.

Hilarious.


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## Diamond Cross (May 15, 2011)

Truth of the matter is, for every yin there is a yang. Every male will find their counterpart in a female.


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## Fifth Element (May 15, 2011)

Aus_Snow said:


> Hilarious.



You do know that some of the so-called white knights in this very thread are in fact female gamers?


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## JamesonCourage (May 15, 2011)

First things first. Pawsplay, can we please, please stick to the actual discussed proposed implementations? When you go on and on about strength and flexibility differences when I've mentioned none (and in a response to my quote, question, or statement), I can only end up being mildly curious what the point of it was.

The discussion is about looking for ways to implement a difference. It's not to catalog all of the realistic interpretations of differences and to implement them mechanically.

Thank you. 



pawsplay said:


> I think you end up with an odd situation where rangers are gender-neutral, while fighters and barbarians are more likely to be female, and rogues male. Rogues are not likely to be distance runners but are likely to climb and swim. Fighters and barbarians can generate high enough Climb and Swim numbers if they choose, but free Endurance (and hence sleeping in armor) is hard to pass up. Female rangers get slightly taxed at 3rd level when they get Endurance a second time, but men can't match them in potential.




Well, I'd say a lot of fighters would pass on the free Endurance, as they'd probably favor either light or heavy armor, and Endurance lets you sleep in medium (and light is automatically fine for everyone). Barbarians, I can see.

With that in mind, what about implementing _what we discussed?_ I said, if it's more appropriate, it could be +1 to Climb and Swim for males, and +2 to all checks Endurance gives a bonus to for females. It looks like your objections would be eliminated.



> Many horizon walkers would be female, as would many defenders. The tale of the Marathon run, in this world, would probably involve a female runner.




I really don't think people will base their gender the huge majority of the time over such a small bonus. I think the character concept will trump the small bonus that either sex gets. That is, I think if any woman or man I knew went into the game with an idea for their character that already included being a specific sex, this wouldn't swing it for them. At all. As always, YMMV.

I do, however, think it's a little ludicrous to stop any mechanical implementation because optimizers might utilize it. Towards that end, while it might make more mechanical sense for women to fulfill certain roles within society based on inherent mechanical differences, it is -as always- up to the individual GM to implement the social structure of individual societies, including how the two sexes interact.



> The situation is a little odd because in real life, hard training tends to reduce gender differences for complex tasks. However, specific athletic feats may accentuate differences, such as males power lifting, or females doing gymnastics, because physiology is so important for such an optimized task.




You can close the gap with a feat. Though if the other sex also takes the same feat, they'll be ahead. This seems to model what you're saying well enough.

I think that's the problem you've been expressing so far. That any implementation won't model the actual differences well enough. Well, past a certain point, you say "it's a game, and for simplicity's sake we'll just leave it at this." As mentally painful as it was for me, I had to do that all the time in the game I created.

I am not looking (and I don't think anyone here is) for a huge list of mechanical differences that pseudo-accurately imitates the two sexes. I'm looking to see if there's a way to implement some sort of mechanical difference that wouldn't be objectionable.

Please, please keep that in mind. I do not need to be reminded of the potential ramifications in my game. I'm amazingly good at juggling that. I understand things will be different. Fine. I'm curious about non-offensive potential mechanical implementations.

As always, thanks for the discussion thus far. I appreciate it.


----------



## I'm A Banana (May 15, 2011)

Aus_Snow said:
			
		

> I find it endlessy amusing that, despite the inevitable array of male would-be white knights trembling with righteous indignation, I've known for quite some time now a number of female gamers - including a prominent CRPG modder, many a roleplayer (among them, a couple of superb DMs), and assorted others - who not only have no issues with statistical differences between the sexes and the recognition of these in games, but have added them in themselves, where they have deemed it necessary or desirable to do so.




Well, genders aren't monolithic. Just 'cuz some dudes/ladies (don't) have a Problem with A Thing doesn't mean the Thing is (not) a Problem.

If you're not presenting something for mass consumption, you just gotta worry about the folks you know. 

If you ARE presenting something for mass consumption -- something like D&D that is designed to be played by millions of people from all walks of life over the entire world -- it's probably better to leave out things that typify your possible consumer base in ANY light. It's part of why you don't have the Hindu gods or Native American rituals in the books. It's insulting, even when it doesn't really mean to be.


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## nedjer (May 15, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> You do know that some of the so-called white knights in this very thread are in fact female gamers?




Nope, he's got Frazetta in his avatar, so the only valid women in Aus-Snow's world pop on a bikini to go out in a snowstorm - and have breasts so large they have to wear a spinal brace to lift a longsword


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## S'mon (May 15, 2011)

Aus_Snow said:


> I find it endlessy amusing that, despite the inevitable array of male would-be white knights trembling with righteous indignation, I've known for quite some time now a number of female gamers - including a prominent CRPG modder, many a roleplayer (among them, a couple of superb DMs), and assorted others - who not only have no issues with statistical differences between the sexes and the recognition of these in games, but have _added them in themselves_, where they have deemed it necessary or desirable to do so.
> 
> Hilarious.




My wife goes so far as to always play male PCs if she wants to play hack & slash butt-kickers - which is often - whereas her female PCs are more likely to be fragile fashion-obsessed seductresses who run a mile from combat.  And IRL my wife is if anything closer psychologically (& physically) to her male butt-kicker PCs, she likes to recount how she once fought off a gang of taser-armed muggers with only a phone booth for assistance.  They ran off when repeated use of the taser failed to take her down.

Edit: This was in Houston in the early '90s.


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## Celebrim (May 15, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I find the currently debated topic amusing. "Can small creatures be strong for their size?" is pretty funny to me when it's obviously applicable in real life, and in a game where we don't question how a giant is capable of walking, much less fighting.




Speak for yourself, please.  One of the things that originally ran me off of D&D was the desire for more realistic physics, and while I eventually gave up on 'realism' as being the sole quality of a good system, what I learned from those days still informs my current game.  Among other things, it was nods toward realism like the penalties to hit and AC suffered by large creatures that helped convince me that the 3e designers had experienced the same frustrations I did with 1e and had found elegant median positions between realism and playability.



> Can we get back to interesting implementations of gender differences, such as the optional character traits or semi-stackable free feats?




I'll try if I can avoid interruptions by the tract passing evangelists. 

One thing this thread made me take notice of is that pretty much all the options in my game were for female characters.  Several people challenged me that I should have options male characters as well.  So I started thinking about what sort of options might be uniquely 'male' in nature.   For example, 'male priviledge' can't really be an option, because it sounds like it has effects to close to having noble rank, and not only can women have noble rank, but one of my nations is a matriarchal heriditary Queendom and the Pannonians will only allow themselves to be ruled by a female despot.  

One thing I'm thinking about right now is:

Massive [Trait]
You are significantly larger than the average for your species.
*Prerequisite:* Must be male, must be medium-sized or larger
*Benefit:* You are larger than is normal for your race, being 10-20% taller than normal and between 1/3rd and 1/2 heavier than normal for your race.  This grants you greater than normal strength, but has a negative impact on your fitness.  You gain a +2 bonus to strength, and an addtional +1 bonus on strength based combat manuever checks.  You have a +2 bonus on the Porter skill.  On the down side, your size and bulk is unhealthy for your race.  Although you aren't necessarily obese, your bone structure and cardiovascular system was just never meant to carry this much weight.  You have a -1 penalty on endurance checks and fumble confirmation rolls. You additionally take a -2 penalty on the Climb, Balance, Run, Jump, and Tumble skills.
*Special:* Regardless of size class or gender, elves may not take this trait.  Goblin females may take this trait provided that they are medium-sized or larger as an exception to the normal prerequisites.

Work in progress; it's the 'I'm a Offensive Linemen' trait.  It's a bit less extreme than having some sort of 'Giantism' trait available (which would be open to both genders, but would be a Disadvantage rather than a Trait).   Balance will need to be thought out before I add it to the house rules.  It's a bit more complicated than I like in a trait, but not the most complicated trait that I have and its a one time cost in terms of its impact on stats.  It's also a pretty one diminsional trait, but then again, so is something like Spell Casting Prodigy.   And obviously, there is quite a bit in there that makes no sense in the context of the RAW.  Still, its an example of providing for gender diversity and its one of those character defining traits that helps bring a concept (albiet probably a simple sterotypical one in this case) to the paper mechanically.


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## S'mon (May 15, 2011)

S'mon said:


> My wife goes so far as to always play male PCs if she wants to play hack & slash butt-kickers - which is often - whereas her female PCs are more likely to be fragile fashion-obsessed seductresses who run a mile from combat.  And IRL my wife is if anything closer psychologically (& physically) to her male butt-kicker PCs, she likes to recount how she once fought off a gang of taser-armed muggers with only a phone booth for assistance.  They ran off when repeated use of the taser failed to take her down.
> 
> Edit: This was in Houston in the early '90s.




According to Ingrid, her main concern was for her attackers:

"They were trying to mug me right under my friend Blake's apartment.  If he'd seen them, he'd have shot them."


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## JamesonCourage (May 15, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Speak for yourself, please.




Please point out where I was speaking for anyone else, Celebrim. Please, don't speak for me by implying I'm doing something that I'm not. I do not appreciate the attempt at anyone else speaking for me, and I certainly was not attempting to speak for you.

Thank you.



> One thing this thread made me take notice of is that pretty much all the options in my game were for female characters.  Several people challenged me that I should have options male characters as well.  So I started thinking about what sort of options might be uniquely 'male' in nature.   For example, 'male priviledge' can't really be an option, because it sounds like it has effects to close to having noble rank, and not only can women have noble rank, but one of my nations is a matriarchal heriditary Queendom and the Pannonians will only allow themselves to be ruled by a female despot.
> 
> One thing I'm thinking about right now is:
> 
> ...




That's interesting. Since you already have female-only optional traits, I don't see too much wrong with this trait.


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## Celebrim (May 15, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Please point out where I was speaking for anyone else, Celebrim.




Ok.



> *we* don't question how a giant is capable of walking, much less fighting.




Explain 'we'.


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## Ariosto (May 15, 2011)

Jon_Dahl said:


> I also vaguely remember the same from Runequest...



I just looked in my 1st and 2nd (Chaosium) edition and 3rd (Avalon Hill) edition books, and did not find that.


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## JamesonCourage (May 15, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Ok.
> 
> Explain 'we'.




The group at my table. Any other questions?


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## nedjer (May 15, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Explain 'we'.




Royalty in the forum?


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## Celebrim (May 16, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> The group at my table. Any other questions?




So, I'm to understand your prior statement to mean the following:



> I find the currently debated topic amusing. "Can small creatures be strong for their size?" is pretty funny to me when it's obviously applicable in real life, and in a game where [the group at my table] don't question how a giant is capable of walking, much less fighting.




Ok.... yeah, still I'm having problems understanding that but I won't push it.


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## JamesonCourage (May 16, 2011)

I appreciate that. I'd much rather continue to talk about interesting implementations.


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## pawsplay (May 16, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> No, it's not.
> 
> Let's look at the paragraph again:
> 
> ...




I thought you might comment on how you resolve the apparent contradiction between:


1. Believing fairy tales are supposed to be empowering
2. But not empowering people who want to play female warriors

It's not really a yes-or-no question. Unless, I suppose, you just said, "No," which would seem to contradict yourself beyond recovery. But the sparest "Yes," answer I can conceive of is, "Yes, pawsplay, is there some reason you imagine this would be a difficult question for me to tackle?" in which I case I reply with basically what I just said.



> Do you still insist that you are interpreting what I said in the strongest possible light, that having read my statements you ask the question, "Can girls defeat dragons?"  Honestly, is there any way to interpret that statement in a less charitable fashion than to ask me whether I think girls can defeat dragons?  One does not immediately come to mind.




I am granting that you do have an answer, with which you are apparently satisfied, that you are capable of expressing it, and that you are interested in furthering the discussion in this thread. I cannot fathom how I could possibly be more charitable, short of simply agreeing with you.




> Anyone with the slightest bit of interest in what I actually wrote wouldn't have to ask how I answer the question.
> 
> Yes, I do refuse to answer such a question.  It is insulting and I have no intention of dignifying it.




It is not insulting. If I were not interested in your opinion, I wouldn't bother asking you for it. I certainly wouldn't bother trying to tease it out of you, in the hope that your uncooperative response is simply a sign that I have triggered some level of defensiveness, rather than a complete inability or unwillingness on your part to address what I see to be the heart of this controversy.


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## pawsplay (May 16, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> First things first. Pawsplay, can we please, please stick to the actual discussed proposed implementations? When you go on and on about strength and flexibility differences when I've mentioned none (and in a response to my quote, question, or statement), I can only end up being mildly curious what the point of it was.




I was commenting on the general case. Are you saying the only thing on the table is a bonus to Climb and Swim for males and an Endurance-like bonus for females? Are these the options being considered?

1) Males get Athletic, females get Endurance
2) Males get Athletic, females get Endurance, and someone who takes the feat gets an additional 1/2 the bonus
3) Males get +1 to Climb and Swim, females get +2 to Endurance-type checks?

I guess I would wonder what you are going for. Women are not notably better at resisting cold temperatures, nor at digging ditches. Those aren't really archetypally feminine activities in fiction, either. Women's stamina tends to come into play more when you are talking about high caloric, sustained activities, like childbirth, death marches, or factory piecework. I suppose you might comment that you ar not interested in looking at realistic differences, in which case I ask again why any differences at all would be implemented.

What is the _reason_ for implementing sex-linked differences? If you simply want to double the number of playable "races," you could pick anything you want, and a flat bonus, a la #3, is the simplest and most balanced method. If you want to emphasize differences between genders as expressed by fictional media, I guess my questions would be:

1) what gender norms are you using for your baseline reality?
2) do you feel athletics versus stamina adequately summarizes the difference you are trying to emulate?
3) do you think the results are fair and balanced?

As far as fair and balanced go, I think a climb or swim check comes up fairly option, at least until mid-levels, whereas endurance checks come up maybe every four or five sessions, and the consequences are pretty easy to mitigate (lesser restoration and cure light wounds in 3e, for instance). If women get the full benefits of the Endurance feat, in addition to the +4 bonus, I think it's fairly balanced, at least on the surface of it. If you are talking about the bonus only, though, I'd say that's about half the benefits of the feat.

+2 to endurance-type checks and +1 to (some_skill) would be relatively balanced against +1 to Climb and Swim. Tumble is not a bad choice, as you have some reason to cite realism, and the same characters tend to wish they had both Climb and Tumble. It's also a good idea, IMO, to balance physical and physical, and mental and mental, lest you get into stereotypes of men being the more physical characters and women being "alluring" and/or witchy.


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## JamesonCourage (May 16, 2011)

I'm going to attempt to respond to you (Pawsplay) as in-depth as I can, because we seem to be doing a lot of talking past one another for some reason. I think we're both reasonable and intelligent people. I see you in a positive light. I'd like to keep up on the productive conversation when possible. As I said, I just feel like we're talking past one another.



pawsplay said:


> I was commenting on the general case.




Okay, that's understandable. As I cannot distinguish your intentions easily (obviously) without them being stated, can you let me know when you're doing this? I just assumed you were discussing the specifics I mentioned when you quoted my text, especially since I had previously tried to bring attention to it twice before (admittedly to the thread, and not necessarily to you in specific).



> Are you saying the only thing on the table is a bonus to Climb and Swim for males and an Endurance-like bonus for females? Are these the options being considered?




Currently, yes. I'd like to address them, and tweak the ideas or spread out from there. I think to continue to drift towards the repercussions of any theoretical mechanical implementation that deals with feelings and not with crunch is useful, but to focus on it is not.

The mechanical ramifications are more important to me than the continued focus on "some people might not like it" or "it's not very realistic." Those thoughts are worth considering, but the continued focus is the opposite of productive. More thoughts to come on this.



> 1) Males get Athletic, females get Endurance
> 2) Males get Athletic, females get Endurance, and someone who takes the feat gets an additional 1/2 the bonus
> 3) Males get +1 to Climb and Swim, females get +2 to Endurance-type checks?




Sure, let's start here and work. I thought we'd refined it more along the lines of number 3 by now.



> I guess I would wonder what you are going for.




It's really not important. I suppose, simply, some broadly non-offensive mechanical difference in sexes that somewhat mimics perceived differences in fantasy.



> Women are not notably better at resisting cold temperatures, nor at digging ditches.




It's not meant to be all-encompassing. It's a game. Again, past a certain point, you say "and for simplicity's sake, we leave it at that" and then you move on. The premise we're working with is exploring mechanical differences if you did want to differentiate the sexes somehow. That's what I'm going for, at least. It seems very on-topic for the original post.



> Those aren't really archetypally feminine activities in fiction, either.




I'm not overly concerned with typical female archetypes. Most of the fantasy I've read has depicted women as more cerebral and less physical than males. I'm not going for that feel, as I don't think it falls under the "broadly non-offensive" umbrella.



> Women's stamina tends to come into play more when you are talking about high caloric, sustained activities, like childbirth, death marches, or factory piecework.




Taking the Endurance feat gives you a +4 bonus to the following Constitution checks and Fortitude saves:
(1) checks made to continue running
(2) checks made to avoid nonlethal damage from a forced march
(3) checks made to hold your breath
(4) checks made to to avoid nonlethal damage from starvation or thirst
(5) saves made to avoid nonlethal damage from hot or cold environments
(6) saves made to resist damage from suffocation.

It strikes me as odd that in a game where such a small difference in attributes is so hotly debated, any character can spend a feat to effectively have a +8 bonus to Constitution for the above checks is fine. Especially considering how unrelated they are.

The point: past a certain point, you go for simplicity. It's okay for things to not be amazingly accurate if everyone is pretty happy with the game. I understand that people are happy with the game now, but if the point of the thread is to explore potential and theoretical mechanical differences between the sexes, I'd like to see how to do it as broadly non-offensive as possible.



> I suppose you might comment that you ar not interested in looking at realistic differences, in which case I ask again why any differences at all would be implemented.




The point of the thread is to explore theoretical mechanical differences. That's why we're discussing things. I'd like to see something that makes the genders different, both nice to play, and that the differences are seen as broadly non-offensive.



> What is the _reason_ for implementing sex-linked differences? If you simply want to double the number of playable "races,"




This isn't it. I hope I've explained my motives adequately.



> you could pick anything you want, and a flat bonus, a la #3, is the simplest and most balanced method.




It's also the method I'm currently most satisfied with, though I think the "optional character traits" method has been woefully under-explored. I think there's a lot of potential there. Also, the bonuses we've been talking about so far have a lot of potential room for improvement.



> If you want to emphasize differences between genders as expressed by fictional media, I guess my questions would be:
> 
> 1) what gender norms are you using for your baseline reality?
> 2) do you feel athletics versus stamina adequately summarizes the difference you are trying to emulate?




I'll let you deal with these. They're straying too far from my focus. I don't see them as particularly relevant after I've expressed my vague pseudo-goal.



> 3) do you think the results are fair and balanced?
> 
> As far as fair and balanced go, I think a climb or swim check comes up fairly option, at least until mid-levels, whereas endurance checks come up maybe every four or five sessions, and the consequences are pretty easy to mitigate (lesser restoration and cure light wounds in 3e, for instance). If women get the full benefits of the Endurance feat, in addition to the +4 bonus, I think it's fairly balanced, at least on the surface of it. If you are talking about the bonus only, though, I'd say that's about half the benefits of the feat.




My players would probably think the females got the better deal. Swim checks are rare, forced marches are common, and large physical obstacles are often either ignored or bypassed through the use of fly magic. Before that point, there might be a few rolls, but as I said, the forced march checks would be more common in my games.

Just a playstyle difference. Our mileage has varied.



> +2 to endurance-type checks and +1 to (some_skill) would be relatively balanced against +1 to Climb and Swim.Tumble is not a bad choice, as you have some reason to cite realism, and the same characters tend to wish they had both Climb and Tumble. It's also a good idea, IMO, to balance physical and physical, and mental and mental, lest you get into stereotypes of men being the more physical characters and women being "alluring" and/or witchy.




I like the idea of physical being balanced with physical. Especially when the bonuses we're talking about are fairly small. I'm not against a +1 bonus to Tumble on top of it. Though as I said, my players would probably think the females already had the better deal. They wouldn't object to any of this, though, so who knows.

I hope I've been concise enough to keep us on the same page for now. Thanks for the conversation thus far


----------



## Umbran (May 16, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> It's really not important. I suppose, simply, some broadly non-offensive mechanical difference in sexes that somewhat mimics perceived differences in fantasy.




I think too many people find any mechanical difference offensive for this to be a realistic goal.  You may get broad agreement that what you use as your house rules are your own business, but a significant portion of folks will still view what you're doing as sexist, no matter the specifics of your implementation.


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## Celebrim (May 16, 2011)

Umbran said:


> I think too many people find any mechanical difference offensive for this to be a realistic goal.  You may get broad agreement that what you use as your house rules are your own business, but a significant portion of folks will still view what you're doing as sexist, no matter the specifics of your implementation.




Umbran has the heart of the matter, JC.  Once you've established that many people find any mechanical difference to be immoral, you probably won't even get the broad agreement that your house rules are your own business.  Instead, whatever you say you are going to get a lot of "there must be villain in there somewhere" behavior.


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## Keefe the Thief (May 16, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I appreciate that. I'd much rather continue to talk about interesting implementations.




Indeed. Maybe we should create a thread called "Genders - what's the difference" to discuss a couple of implementations in a creative and mature manner...

hey, wait a minute.


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## Umbran (May 16, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Instead, whatever you say you are going to get a lot of "there must be villain in there somewhere" behavior.




I should clarify - what I think this means is that you have to aim for an implementation that is acceptable for your own group.  Unless you're going to publish them, how broadly they're accepted is not really relevant.


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## pawsplay (May 16, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Umbran has the heart of the matter, JC.  Once you've established that many people find any mechanical difference to be immoral, you probably won't even get the broad agreement that your house rules are your own business.  Instead, whatever you say you are going to get a lot of "there must be villain in there somewhere" behavior.




Some people find a lot of mechanical differences to be immoral; some of those people have posted in this thread. Unless you consider the issue trivial, it is a moral issue.

I'm not interested in a witch-hunt against anyone's house rules, and I don't know who is. Perhaps you can clarify who you think is doing that.


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## billd91 (May 16, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Some people find a lot of mechanical differences to be immoral; some of those people have posted in this thread. Unless you consider the issue trivial, it is a moral issue.
> 
> I'm not interested in a witch-hunt against anyone's house rules, and I don't know who is. Perhaps you can clarify who you think is doing that.




I don't know about other people but, for me, inserting elements into the game that have a tendency to weed out players of a variety of different groupings (whether based on sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc) without being necessary or optional seems foolish at the minimum and ranging well into the realms of stupidity and immorality in more extreme forms.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 16, 2011)

So now 1E was immoral because it had stat differences for genders.  In the early '80s, it was immoral because it was a little too free with magic and demons.  I believe we have another hot topic on that very thing, at the moment.  

With apologies to G. K. Chesterton's, one begins to suspect that D&D was not as odd as its critics.  That rather than being this strange thing with this odd defect, it was all strange things, with all defects, some of them mutually exclusive.  One almost begins to suspect that one could beat it with any stick ...

And yes, I'm well aware of the irony or stealing that thought, given what GKC was defending.


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## Celebrim (May 16, 2011)

billd91 said:


> I don't know about other people but, for me, inserting elements into the game that have a tendency to weed out players of a variety of different groupings (whether based on sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc) without being necessary or optional seems foolish at the minimum and ranging well into the realms of stupidity and immorality in more extreme forms.




I'm pretty much done with this topic, but this sort of assertion is worthy of at least an attempt at answer.

One thing I've learned posting at EnWorld over the years is that to gamers, pretty much everything about games ends up being a topic that carries moral value.  It doesn't matter how you play, someone is certain that you are not only doing it wrong, but having badwrongfun.  I say this with full knowledge that I've from time to time been guilty of the same hubris.

For my part, I believe that this hobby is little more than a vainity.  That it is ultimately trivial is both its damnation and its saving grace.   The least we could do is drop some of the pretention with respect to other people playing a game since there is very little that can occur within the game that is ultimately serious.   If we believe otherwise, then we ought to apologize to Jack Chick, because if this game is that filled with potential moral hazard perhaps we ought to consider a more healthy and less hazardous hobby like going to bars and over indulging in spirits.

In this particular case, it seems some people believe that they can infer from an aspect of the game mechanics whether or not someone is sexist and from that draw some bright sharp moral dividing line.  This is hardly surprising, since as I said, there has hardly been a topic I've been involved in where someone didn't accuse me of moral, emotional, and mental disfunctionality for disagreeing with them.  A full accounting of the number of times I've been called stupid, foolish and immoral on this site would number in the hundreds, to say nothing of the thousands of times I've seen such insults hurled at third parties.  It's not like I expect this topic to be unique in that matter because it involves gender politics; nothing else has escaped it either.

For my part, I find no such coorelation between this mechanic and well anything.  I'm not ready to pass moral judgment one way or the other on people who do or do not endorse or use a particular sort of mechanic.   The reason for this is that I can imagine sexist motivations behind, either including or excluding such mechanics and I can imagine a complete lack of sexist motivation behind such inclusions and exclusions.   I can imagine women who prefer and invent such mechanics, and I can imagine mysogynist games designed by people with sterotypically disfunctional mental issues with the opposite sex.  Heck, I can imagine games filled with misandry as well.  What I can't imagine is lumping everything in to one category.

Ultimately to me the matter does seem trivial.  It is a trivial matter within an otherwise trivial gaming excercise.  In and of itself, it tells me very little of the table, it's interests, or even the genders that play at that table.  In short, in and of itself, having mechanical gender differences I think tells you nothing about the people playing the game.   It's a fairly trivial matter of table preference, probably often adopted for the most trivial of reasons, and while I understand some people might have been previously burned on this topic just as there are some who've been burned by bad DMs using every sort of excuse imaginable (which is why we have wars over editions and over sandboxes vs. adventure paths, to prep or not to prep, and every other seemingly trivial preference), I would encourage people to understand that their own experiences probably doesn't cover the wealth and diversity of tables that are out there (good or bad).


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## billd91 (May 16, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> So now 1E was immoral because it had stat differences for genders.  In the early '80s, it was immoral because it was a little too free with magic and demons.  I believe we have another hot topic on that very thing, at the moment.




There's a big moral difference between foolishly injecting a sexist rule that will unnecessarily alienate players and crafting a game that deliberately belittles racial minorities (like RaHoWa). And in any event, TSR fixed its gender-based state limitation foolishness over 20 years ago with 2nd edition. Atonement accomplished.


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## billd91 (May 16, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> For my part, I believe that this hobby is little more than a vainity.  That it is ultimately trivial is both its damnation and its saving grace.   The least we could do is drop some of the pretention with respect to other people playing a game since there is very little that can occur within the game that is ultimately serious.   If we believe otherwise, then we ought to apologize to Jack Chick, because if this game is that filled with potential moral hazard perhaps we ought to consider a more healthy and less hazardous hobby like going to bars and over indulging in spirits.




And if there's anything I've learned at ENWorld, people are more than willing to pour their hearts, beliefs, and prejudices into this hobby you consider a vanity, and spend a lot of time debating these trivial aspects of trivialities even when they profess to be done with the topic. There are not only many ways to approach the hobby, but also many levels of significance the hobby may play in people's lives and many ways that styles, forms, and contents of play may reveal or obscure elements of the players' character. 

And I'm content to let what I observe guide me in my estimations of what other hobbyists would fit in well with my circle of gamers and friends. I can tell you right now that any gamer who insists that there needs to be mechanical differences between male and female PC statistics because of real-world differences isn't a good fit... and not just because the women I game with would be telling him where he can shove his RPG rules (In particular, nobody would want to piss off the short, red-haired one. She's got a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and is frequently armed.).


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## pawsplay (May 16, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> The least we could do is drop some of the pretention with respect to other people playing a game since there is very little that can occur within the game that is ultimately serious.




I would classify hurting real people's enjoyment as serious. 



> In this particular case, it seems some people believe that they can infer from an aspect of the game mechanics whether or not someone is sexist and from that draw some bright sharp moral dividing line.




Who are those people? I'm not seeing what you are talking about. I see a discussion about some significant issues, some personal anecdotes, a little logic, and some pragmatic examination of facts. I haven't seen a bright, sharp line of anything since the beginning of the thread. 



> This is hardly surprising, since as I said, there has hardly been a topic I've been involved in where someone didn't accuse me of moral, emotional, and mental disfunctionality for disagreeing with them.




I am kind of baffled why you don't regard this thread as a breath of fresh air, but evidently you are seeing something I am not.



> A full accounting of the number of times I've been called stupid, foolish and immoral on this site would number in the hundreds, to say nothing of the thousands of times I've seen such insults hurled at third parties.




Care to back that up with some quotes?



> What I can't imagine is lumping everything in to one category.




... Still not feeling oppressed? Seriously, if you are, it's okay to say so. Other people do all the time. 



> Ultimately to me the matter does seem trivial.  It is a trivial matter within an otherwise trivial gaming excercise.




I am sure this is not your intention, but.... Have you considered how this could be seen as saying the desire for equal respect for women is trivial?


----------



## JamesonCourage (May 16, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I would classify hurting real people's enjoyment as serious.




Considering just how subjective "people's enjoyment" is, I'd say that while it has some place in this discussion, it's rather small. We're talking about _theoretical and even potentially optional house rules_. We're not talking about revising the game with these rules in place, and then making them the new default.



> I am sure this is not your intention, but.... Have you considered how this could be seen as saying the desire for equal respect for women is trivial?




And with this, I think I'm going to step out of the thread. At least until things become much less personal to people when it shouldn't be. Nobody is trying to disregard how women feel*. Nobody is trying to discuss implementations that women object to*.

Perhaps reasonable discourse on theoretical mechanical implementations that are broadly acceptable are best left to another board, or a room full of friends.

As far as this thread goes, I didn't enter it to get into a moral debate. It was to explore possible mechanical differences between the sexes. It wasn't to offend people by even discussing the subject. If that is indeed the case (as it's inherently a moral issue to some people), then I think I have to bow out to a forum a little more private, where I can discuss this rationally.

Play what you like.

*I've been told not to speak for Celebrim.


----------



## Umbran (May 16, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> One thing I've learned posting at EnWorld over the years is that to gamers, pretty much everything about games ends up being a topic that carries moral value.




You know, frequently, I'd agree with that assessment.  Some folks would put moral value on the average damage an Assassin could dish out, and that's a bit much.  But in this case, you're discussing discriminating between genders in a society that is still working through it's gender discrimination issues, and some folks do still feel the effects of sexism.  

It probably isn't dismissible as just gamer passion when people still have such problems frequently in the real world.  You're touching on *real* hot buttons, not just gamerisms, and you should expect them to matter to people.


----------



## nedjer (May 16, 2011)

Building models and testing them (aka games) is pretty much how we learn; but as learning is increasingly considered trivial, I guess highly effective learning media like RPGs and case-based learning are heading that way.


----------



## pawsplay (May 16, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Perhaps reasonable discourse on theoretical mechanical implementations that are broadly acceptable are best left to another board, or a room full of friends.




I feel like I am trying to have a reasonable discussion. I can't speak for anyone else, but I feel really frustrated that the "discussion" seems to be acceptable only when it remains in the realm of agreeing or softballing. You do not seem to enjoy talking about what is "broadly acceptable." I don't understand how refusing to offer points up for discussion, or impugning the civility of this board, or expressing privileged-class martyrdom (not that I am accusing you personally of doing that) is "reasonable," how someone can propose to characterize men and women broadly and not expect their preconceptions to be challenged.


----------



## Crazy Jerome (May 16, 2011)

billd91 said:


> There's a big moral difference between foolishly injecting a sexist rule that will unnecessarily alienate players and crafting a game that deliberately belittles racial minorities (like RaHoWa). And in any event, TSR fixed its gender-based state limitation foolishness over 20 years ago with 2nd edition. Atonement accomplished.




It's all how you want to frame the question, as one can see from your framing above. Me, I think if you are offending Jack Chick, you may or may not be in the wrong, but your enemies would seem to be in your favor. We've already had an appeal to the high priesthood on the main topic, and I think if you've offended the typical women's studies department, it is the same. You may or may not be wrong, but you've earned a point.

It is kind of hard to inject *any* rule on certain subject matter without offending Chick. Ditto for his equivalents on this issue.


----------



## RedTonic (May 16, 2011)

What is "RaHoWa"?


----------



## pawsplay (May 16, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> It's all how you want to frame the question, as one can see from your framing above. Me, I think if you are offending Jack Chick, you may or may not be in the wrong, but your enemies would seem to be in your favor. We've already had an appeal to the high priesthood on the main topic, and I think if you've offended the typical women's studies department, it is the same. You may or may not be wrong, but you've earned a point.
> 
> It is kind of hard to inject *any* rule on certain subject matter without offending Chick. Ditto for his equivalents on this issue.




Wow.

You just compared women's studies to Jack Chick.


----------



## Mallus (May 16, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I appreciate that. I'd much rather continue to talk about interesting implementations.



I think the approach S'mon described works best. Leave it up to the players how to model gender. 



S'mon said:


> ... and handled it by statting my Red Sonja type PC with STR 16, my Conan type PC with STR 18.  This gave a minimal degree of versimilitude while keeping Red a playable PC, with Point Buy I could give her a higher DEX than Conan; her better AC matched his better attack/damage.



This works fine in any game with an existing, robust character generation system.

My group's playing Savage Worlds now, and apparently I must mention in every other post as if I were a new convert to a cult, or, perhaps an Amway salesman. SW sports an admirably complete yet compact list of advantages and disadvantages (called Edges & Hindrances) which allow for the mechanical representation of a broad range of characteristics/differences, but it's entirely up to the player which ones apply to their PC, in accordance w/a simple point-buy system.

For example, my character is a 12 year-old girl/whizkid engineer in a Flash Gordon-esque milieu. I chose to give her the lowest possible starting strength and hand-to-hand fighting ability. Seemed fitting. 

But I could have chosen to play a very different 12 year-old girl; say Pippi Longstocking in space, and given her the _highest_ possible strength and commensurate ass-kicking abilities, for good measure. Again, my choice.

In SW, there's a Hindrance called "Young", meant for lucky child protagonists/sidekicks like Short Round in the Temple of Doom. Even though my PC is 12, the system didn't obligate me to take it. It was merely an optional mechanical descriptor... one I _didn't_ use it since it clashed w/my concept. Instead, I choose other disadvantages; she's pursued by several would-be kidnappers and she smokes.

The advantage to this approach should be clear, it accommodates a larger number of possible PC concepts. If someone wants to play an unreasonably skilled kid in a pulp sci-fi setting, so be it. Ditto a man-strong swordswoman in a pulp fantasy setting. In both cases, we've left realism far behind, as soon as we boarded that sparking, cigar-shaped rocket, and punched out the giant ape who was guarding the enormous ruby...


----------



## pawsplay (May 16, 2011)

RedTonic said:


> What is "RaHoWa"?




Racial Holy War. It's a white supremist RPG, reputedly written in such a fashion it calls into question how much the author understands what an RPG is.


----------



## pawsplay (May 16, 2011)

Mallus said:


> I
> In SW, there's a Hindrance called "Young", meant for lucky child protagonists/sidekicks like Short Round in the Temple of Doom. Even though my PC is 12, the system didn't obligate me to take it. It was merely an optional mechanical descriptor... one I _didn't_ use it since it clashed w/my concept. Instead, I choose other disadvantages; she's pursued by several would-be kidnappers and she smokes.




I prefer that approach. In fact, I think it's so inevitible that, as I said upthread, I think implementing mechanical options is practically solving the problem twice.



> In both cases, we've left realism far behind, as soon as we boarded that sparking, cigar-shaped rocket, and punched out the giant ape who was guarding the enormous ruby...




...

...

Paging Doctor Freud!


----------



## billd91 (May 16, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> It is kind of hard to inject *any* rule on certain subject matter without offending Chick. Ditto for his equivalents on this issue.




I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Jack Chick has no interest in playing RPGs with me.

I would say that the main question isn't whether or not I'd alienate Jack Chick or someone else might offend the local Women's Studies department, but whether I'd alienate someone else already inclined or curious enough to play were it not for the alienating factor.


----------



## JamesonCourage (May 16, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I feel like I am trying to have a reasonable discussion. I can't speak for anyone else, but I feel really frustrated that the "discussion" seems to be acceptable only when it remains in the realm of agreeing or softballing. You do not seem to enjoy talking about what is "broadly acceptable." I don't understand how refusing to offer points up for discussion, or impugning the civility of this board, or expressing privileged-class martyrdom (not that I am accusing you personally of doing that) is "reasonable," how someone can propose to characterize men and women broadly and not expect their preconceptions to be challenged.




Okay.


----------



## nedjer (May 16, 2011)

billd91 said:


> I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Jack Chick has no interest in playing RPGs with me.
> 
> I would say that the main question isn't whether or not I'd alienate Jack Chick or someone else might offend the local Women's Studies department, but whether I'd alienate someone else already inclined or curious enough to play were it not for the alienating factor.




Keep hearing this Jack's name, so I pop over to a web site that appears to be associated with the name. This site, which may or may not have anything to do with the Jack mentioned here, contains material that if published in Scotland would result in arrest and imprisonment for sectarianism under Scottish Law. It would certainly be considered unsuitable for children.


----------



## pawsplay (May 16, 2011)

nedjer said:


> Keep hearing this Jack's name, so I pop over to a web site that appears to be associated with the name. This site, which may or may not have anything to do with the Jack mentioned here, contains material that if published in Scotland would result in arrest and imprisonment for sectarianism under Scottish Law. It would certainly be considered unsuitable for children.




That's the one.


----------



## RedTonic (May 16, 2011)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> There is a whole list I could make of things that men or women are NOT  better at in an appreciable way. Neither is better at math in a  consistent and holistic sense. Neither is better at multi-tasking,  although women do it more often (meaning that men more often screw up by  focusing when they should be multi-tasking, while women are more likely  to screw up by multi-tasking when focusing would be more efficient).  Neither has better "pain tolerance" whatever that means; pain has only a  limited relationship to physiological distress; it is primarily a  psychological phenomenon. The same woman who gives birth to three  children might balk at getting her ribs cracked in a friendly game of  football. Men and women both achieve in every art and science. Both  succeed at almost all professions to some extent; I know a male midwife.  Neither is more "right-brained" or "left-braineD" whatever that means;  women tend to use more decentralized thinking, but A) that is only a  typicality, not a universality (i.e. not true of all or even necessarily  most men and women) and B) brain activity obviously involves strategy  choices as well as physiology, and men and women are socialized to  approach problems differently. Neither is more verbally adept, although  women develop their conversational skills sooner and use them more as  adults; women are not however better listeners. Women and men both are  capable of anger, cruelty, and bullying. Although the top shootists are  men, I can't discern any reason to believe women are not as good or  nearly so at aiming and firing a gun. Neither is better at withstanding  G-forces; women can (on average) take more acceleration change but men  tend to have more upper body strength helping them withstand more  acceleration absolutely; of course exercise softens both differences  (cardio health for men, upper body muscular structure for women). It's  doubtful they differ much in empathy, although women are often perceived  to be more empatic.
> 
> A handful of actual differences: women survive famines better. They live  longer. They are more flexible, and stay that way longer, on average.  They are more prone to depression (although there are reasons to suspect  social factors rather than physiology, or in addition to). Women can  give birth. They have fewer sex-linked genetic disorders. Women can  produce milk. Men have more upper body strength. They also have the  ability to rotate their shoulders with more momentum. Men are more prone  to schizophrenia, and autism. They not uncommonly inherit sex-linked  genetic disorders like color blindness and male pattern baldness. They  can impregnate multiple women. They have a longer stride. Men continue  to grow in height and musculature well into their twenties, and could  gain muscle even into their 40s if active. Men are capable of  reproduction until almost the end of their lives.  Boys are more kinetic  when young, take longer to potty train, and develop vocabulary more  slowly until later in life. Men grow beards and more body hair.
> 
> The only differences I would find even potentially _useful_ in a  game, setting aside the cost-benefit discussion that has already been  highlighted, would be men's greater lifting capabity and throwing  ability, and women's greater stamina under extreme conditions and  greater flexibility.  .... That would be a wash for 3e rogues, monks, and barbarians, but would favor male fighters, male halflings, and female rangers.




More or less what I said several pages ago, but longer. Including schizophrenia.



> "Racial Holy Wars"




How bizarre. It's not enough that many groups commit wholesale fantasy genocide against fantasy races, but now someone wants us to re-enact WWII with dragons on the side.

All of this talk about what types of characters girls get to be reminds me of when I was in elementary school and I was only allowed to pretend to be the Pink or Yellow Power Ranger during recess. _Lame._


----------



## Crazy Jerome (May 16, 2011)

billd91 said:


> I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Jack Chick has no interest in playing RPGs with me.
> 
> I would say that the main question isn't whether or not I'd alienate Jack Chick or someone else might offend the local Women's Studies department, but whether I'd alienate someone else already inclined or curious enough to play were it not for the alienating factor.




That's fair enough.  Generally, when I game, I want to steer a course fairly near the middle between avoiding those who are highly offensive and also avoiding those who are easily offended.  I guess I may be somewhat lucky at the moment that I have that.  It doesn't really matter much to me, either, what the highly offensive or easily offended topic is.  I'm more annoyed by the offense given or received than the particulars.

I've always told beginners, "If we start doing anything that makes you uncomfortable, or would make you uncomfortable if your grandmother was sitting right next to you--tell us, and we'll stop."  Though granted, that might not be the best standard, since both of my grandmothers had off-beat personalities.


----------



## UngainlyTitan (May 16, 2011)

nedjer said:


> Keep hearing this Jack's name, so I pop over to a web site that appears to be associated with the name. This site, which may or may not have anything to do with the Jack mentioned here, contains material that if published in Scotland would result in arrest and imprisonment for sectarianism under Scottish Law. It would certainly be considered unsuitable for children.



 You got the right site.


----------



## nedjer (May 16, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> That's the one.




Not a huge amount of compassion reaching out to me via the website.


----------



## RedTonic (May 17, 2011)

I think he's got a pretty twisted mind. That's another topic, though.  I shouldn't have brought him up at all!


----------



## Hussar (May 17, 2011)

Y'know, it's funny.  WOTC got pasted for suggesting that halflings be river dwelling folk with dreadlocks.  Now, apparently, we're supposed to accept the idea that halflings are built like chimpanzees and are actually much stronger than their size and pretty much every bit of flavour text would indicate.

Meh.  Sorry for bringing it up.  But, the idea that gender differences are somehow "realistic" because halflings are built like chimpanzees seems rather strange to me.

Back to my other point though, why do these things have to be written into the rules and not left up to the players?


----------



## pawsplay (May 17, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Back to my other point though, why do these things have to be written into the rules and not left up to the players?




So GMs can stop players from having badwrongfun?


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## RedTonic (May 17, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> So GMs can stop players from having badwrongfun?




But that's the _best_ kind. (I wanted to XP that, but I have to spread my love around first.)


----------



## tuxgeo (May 17, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> < snip >
> 
> ...
> 
> ...




Doctor Freud has been dead for decades. 
Will he respond to being paged? Only his Necromancer knows for sure!

(Oh, NO! I have posted to the tedious _"Genders -- bollixbollixbollix"_ thread. I must love tedium.)


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## JamesonCourage (May 17, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> So GMs can stop players from having badwrongfun?




That's it _exactly!_ As a tyrannical GM, I find it's best to oppress my players (and those at other tables, as I've obviously tried to do in this thread!) by making them conform to what I like!

I mean, what else could it be? It's not like I ever say "play what you like" or anything.

But hey, play what you like.


----------



## Hussar (May 17, 2011)

But, JamesonCourage, that's the point.  If you hardwire this into the system, then you have to accept that you are going to alienate some players.  Not everyone is going to agree with the idea that the system should differentiate between men and women mechanically - obviously.

OTOH, if you hand it entirely to the players, and not code it into the system, then no one could possibly be offended.  Unless, of course, someone is offended by someone else's character generation decisions, but, that's a bit of a stretch.  If someone is bothered because I put a 14 strength in my female character because I think I shouldn't be as strong as Conan, well, my response would be, "it's my character, I can do whatever I want."

OTOH, it's not the DM's character.  Why is the DM telling me what I should play?


----------



## Celtavian (May 17, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> It depends.
> 
> 1. Is it relevant to the genre?
> 2. Is it fun?
> ...




How did you come by the differences in strength? Do you weight lift or keep up with weight lifting?

Men are nearly 40% stronger than women in the upper body. The RAW bench press record for a superheavyweight female with no shirt is around 400 lbs. For a male around 700 lbs.

And about 30% stronger in the legs.

Even extremely large females cannot attain the mass and power of a male of equal height. 

And you are suggesting constitution superiority by females. They do have pretty much equal muscular endurance, especially with the legs. They still can't compete in marathons and endurance competitions with males.

Even extraordinary female athletes like Venus and Serena Williams had trouble competing against top 200 male tennis players. Serve speed for the female is far lower for a strong female like Serena or Venus and a top 200 male.


You seem to implying that male versus female physical superiority isn't that great. But that isn't true. Males are physically superior to females by such a extraordinary margin that they can't even fairly compete against each other in physical activities. Even such activities as tennis and golf which only require moderate physical power and strength.

In the violent sports like football, rugby, and boxing, they have virtually no chance of competing against a male unless he is very inferior male.

So I'm not sure why you think a +1 ability score is sufficient to show that level of physical dominance.

In fact, the only notable female warrior group in history is the Amazons. And they were not proven to exist and their empire is unknown. There have been some notable female warriors in history such as Mathilda a German warrior queen and Joan of Arc. But neither was known for their individual fighting ability being greater than a males, rather than they were known for extraordinary leadership or tactical acumen.

I'm not encouraging incorporating physical differences in a game. No real need for it. We're playing Red Sonja more than real world history. So I see no need to incorporate such differences.


But you are very mistaken assuming male physical dominance is minor. Male physical dominance and aggression is the entire reason why for all of human history males have dominated every society, with rare exception, in the entire world. I often hear the socialization process was the reason. That is bunk because the socialization process would have never occurred if at any point in human history females were equal physically to males and had similar aggression.

It's also been a negative and may be why male aggression is being bred out of males. We males start 99% of wars, we do most murders, serial killing, random acts of violence, rapes, and physical child abuse and the like. There is a price to pay for the way we are physically built. It does affect the male mentality both positively and negatively. You would have a very difficult time in a fantasy world integrating all the ways females and males are different. 

At the end of the day, it's fantasy. So who cares. I have males like that playing a female character that smacks people down because it's fun to their imagination. They certainly don't want to be limited because someone wants to simulate real world differences between males and females. I don't think in a game that would go too well.

It would be like trying to integrate the physical differences between African, European, and Asian males. Sure, there are some differences, smaller differences than between men and women, but they still exist and are medically documented. But why worry about it. It's a fantasy game.


----------



## Celebrim (May 17, 2011)

I'm like a moth to the flame...



Hussar said:


> But, JamesonCourage, that's the point.  If you hardwire this into the system, then you have to accept that you are going to alienate some players.  Not everyone is going to agree with the idea that the system should differentiate between men and women mechanically - obviously.




You might offend someone is not a terribly huge objection.  In addition to the fact that the objection goes away if we are speaking of 'my table', you can't limit yourself to what hangs people up.  Should I remove the 'Androgynous' trait because someone might be offended by it?  How about removing clerics?  How about removing the option to play evil characters?  Lots of things are potentially offensive.  



> OTOH, if you hand it entirely to the players, and not code it into the system, then no one could possibly be offended.




Err... no.  Again, someone can always be offended about something.   But I'm more interested in the backwards logic you are expressing here.  Stop and think about this a second; you don't call options restrictions when they apply to any other area of the game.  But in this one situation an option suddenly becomes a restriction in your vocabulary.  

Consider if I took away the option to use racial templates because elves offend some people.  If someone wanted to play an elf they could always choose to have higher dex and lower con if they wanted right?  Would that give you more options?  What if I took away feats and traits?  What if I took away skill focus and said, "Just put max ranks in the skill if you want to indicate high skill."  Would you describe removing these aspects of character design from the game as the DM increasing player flexibility?  Would you tell me that the only reason to allow feats, traits, and races in the game was to prevent players from having badwrongfun?  Would you describe an elf having modifiers of +2 to Dex and -2 to Con as the DM "telling you what you should play"?

Really?

Plus imagine for a second that we had a gaming table were gender options were already available.  Do you think someone would be offended if they were taken away?

In short, I understand that this is a touchy subject, but you please stop letting it warp your logic so that up is down and front is back and reducing options is increasing freedom?

And another thing....



> Meh. Sorry for bringing it up. But, the idea that gender differences are somehow "realistic" because halflings are built like chimpanzees seems rather strange to me.




You were the one that claimed that since halflings somehow that showed that gender differences weren't realistic.  You even got upset that after a page or two that no one had yet answered your assertion about the realism of no gender differences because halflings only had a -2 strength penalty.  So when I try to show that your red herring is a red herring and is irrelevent, now you are going to stop taking credit for your red herring and blame me for answering your halfling challenge?  That's a big switch.  

Gender differences are realistic because they are real.  That's the end of it. Whether or not we want to capture that realism may very from table to table, game to game, and setting to setting is entirely another matter.  I can completely understand if you don't want to do that.


----------



## pawsplay (May 17, 2011)

I don't care to game with people who are offended by androgyny. I do see a downside, personally and for the gaming community, with offending... women. Many, if not most, geek women.


----------



## JamesonCourage (May 17, 2011)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I'm like a moth to the flame...




I feel the same way.


----------



## pawsplay (May 17, 2011)

Celtavian said:


> How did you come by the differences in strength? Do you weight lift or keep up with weight lifting?




Not that I see the relevance, but I do lift weights, and I do not keep up with weight lifting as a phenomenon.



> Men are nearly 40% stronger than women in the upper body. The RAW bench press record for a superheavyweight female with no shirt is around 400 lbs. For a male around 700 lbs.




This has been covered in painstaking detail over the course of this thread. I realize it's a long thread, but I think you might find it worthwhile to read more before you post. Just to recap:

1) A total of about +3 effective Strength difference covers even the most generous estimates of strength differences, but is awkward to implement; as you picked up on, I maintain that only about +1 of that, at most, translates into a different Str difference. A lot of the athletic endeavors cited to show male superiority (fencing wins, tennis, running) in D&D are actually associated with _Dex_ or no ability score at all.

2) I posted a video of a female MMA fighter taking out a credible male boxer. She demonstrated the ability not only to outscore him, but to ring him out, shove him, and escape from grapples. In terms of historical women warriors, I can recommend

this article on African all-female militia who fought the French Foreign Legion

as well as these gals

3) Realism is not all where it's at

4) Reality isn't balanced; in most RPGs, PCs are


----------



## pawsplay (May 17, 2011)

Celtavian said:


> And you are suggesting constitution superiority by females. They do have pretty much equal muscular endurance, especially with the legs. They still can't compete in marathons and endurance competitions with males.
> 
> Even extraordinary female athletes like Venus and Serena Williams had trouble competing against top 200 male tennis players. Serve speed for the female is far lower for a strong female like Serena or Venus and a top 200 male.
> 
> ...




Simply because this is a stronger claim than has been made previously, it bears refuting.

In long distance swimming, women quickly close the gap and compete at a close level to male athletes.

Women compete, and sometimes handily defeat men, in ultra distance cycling.

Extreme mountain climbing, equestrian events, and racing.

Impromptu arm wrestling matches. 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caoT3gFfVFQ"]High school wrestling.[/ame]


----------



## S'mon (May 17, 2011)

A 3-point m-f STR difference is about right for real humans (contra pawsplay), and is worth keeping in mind if you need to stat out mundane NPCs, but should be ignored with PCs, who need to be balanced against each other.


----------



## El Mahdi (May 17, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> 1) A total of about +3 effective Strength difference covers even the most generous estimates of strength differences, but is awkward to implement; as you picked up on, I maintain that only about +1 of that, at most, translates into a different Str difference. A lot of the athletic endeavors cited to show male superiority (fencing wins, tennis, running) in D&D are actually associated with _Dex_ or no ability score at all.
> 
> 2) I posted a video of a female MMA fighter taking out a credible male boxer. She demonstrated the ability not only to outscore him, but to ring him out, shove him, and escape from grapples. In terms of historical women warriors, I can recommend
> 
> ...




I agree completely that in the real world, Strength differences between men and women do not necessarily translate into a combat advantage or disadvantage.  I do disagree however, that realism is not all where it's at - for some it's very much where it's at.

For both those that want a mechanical differentiation, and even those that don't, what would you all say to not having a Strength penalty or cap, but simply reducing lifting/carrying capacities by 40% for female characters?


----------



## Fifth Element (May 17, 2011)

El Mahdi said:


> I do disagree however, that realism is not all where it's at - for some it's very much where it's at.
> 
> For both those that want a mechanical differentiation, and even those that don't, what would you all say to not having a Strength penalty or cap, but simply reducing lifting/carrying capacities by 40% for female characters?



I would say that when playing a game that uses the hit point mechanic, I would not be at all concerned with simulating real-world gender differences.


----------



## Hussar (May 17, 2011)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> You were the one that claimed that since halflings somehow that showed that gender differences weren't realistic. You even got upset that after a page or two that no one had yet answered your assertion about the realism of no gender differences because halflings only had a -2 strength penalty. So when I try to show that your red herring is a red herring and is irrelevent, now you are going to stop taking credit for your red herring and blame me for answering your halfling challenge? That's a big switch.




Umm, what?  I'm upset now?  Dude, you're reading WAYY too much into things.  Perhaps this persecution complex you seem to be exhibiting is coloring your perceptions.  

My point is this:

1.  Halfings in D&D (and gnomes too) take a -2 to strength.
2.  Halfings are less than half the size of an average woman.
3.  Why are human women being saddled with the same penalties as a halfling?

After all, elves are considerably smaller and lighter than an average human woman and they don't suffer any sort of strength penalty.  Or perhaps elves are now built like chimpanzees too.  

Look, what you want to do at your table is your business.  Fine.  But, trying to pass it off as "realism" is a joke.


----------



## Hussar (May 17, 2011)

El Mahdi said:


> I agree completely that in the real world, Strength differences between men and women do not necessarily translate into a combat advantage or disadvantage.  I do disagree however, that realism is not all where it's at - for some it's very much where it's at.
> 
> For both those that want a mechanical differentiation, and even those that don't, what would you all say to not having a Strength penalty or cap, but simply reducing lifting/carrying capacities by 40% for female characters?




The problem, in my mind, when you start down this road, is where do you stop?  Ok, we reduce a human woman's carrying cap by 40%.  Now, since we're positing that our female characters are smaller, how much do we reduce the weights of their equipment?  

After all, the female character's armor obviously doesn't weigh as much as the male character's armor.  She'd likely be using a lighter sword (being not as strong and all) and a lighter shield as well.  How do we calculate this?

And it doesn't end there.  Because, sitting next to the female human's player is the elf player who is asking why his plate mail weighs as much as the human male's suit of plate when the elf is about half the human's size.

Meanwhile the orc player is giggling because he gets this whopping big strength bonus, but all his sizes are calculated for a character that's significantly smaller than his orc.

This sort of thing simply proliferates all the way down the line.  Each tweak spawns a series of new issues that need to be addressed until you wind up spending three hours calculating the weight of a dagger because you have to first calculate the weight of the user that accounts for the strength of the user.

Which of course, spawns the question of does a female character's sword do as much damage as the male character's sword.  It's smaller after all.  Does the female character's shield break easier than the male character's shield. 

On and on and on and on.

Again, and I'll repeat this, in a largely abstract gaming system, why on earth would you want to go down this road?  You'd have to rewrite the system from the ground up to account for the granularity required.  And for what?  So you satisfy someone's need for there to be a mechanically generated difference between male and female humans?


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## Celebrim (May 17, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Umm, what?  I'm upset now?




Suggest a better word for what prompts a person to post that people are ignoring his post?  Concern?  Wry amusement?  I don't really care what you want to call it, the point was that the whole halfling comparison was your thing.  You were the one who thought it was some sort of strong argument.  If it now seems really silly, well, I always thought bring up halflings as a counter example to reality was silly.



> Dude, you're reading WAYY too much into things.  Perhaps this persecution complex you seem to be exhibiting is coloring your perceptions.




I haven't a clue what you are talking about.  Pointing out the fact that someone else is acting in a totally irrational manner doesn't constitute me claiming to be persecuted.  



> My point is this:
> 
> 1.  Halfings in D&D (and gnomes too) take a -2 to strength.
> 2.  Halfings are less than half the size of an average woman.
> 3.  Why are human women being saddled with the same penalties as a halfling?




Yes, yes, yes.  I got that.  I've addressed it in detail several times now.  But I guess you can't use logic to argue people out of positions that they didn't reach on the basis of logic.

1) Yes, but Halflings are made up.  As made up creatures they can have pretty much any strength that the creator wants to assign them.   As I have already stated, I also have problems with Halfling and Gnome realism (neither are allowed races in my campaign) particularly given that the two races ignore D&D's usual guidelines on stating out small sized creatures.   Size has a much bigger effect in my house rules than in stock D&D.  But in stock D&D small creatures normally have a -4 penalty to both STR and CON compared to medium-sized creatures (which is fairly realistic as far as it goes).  Since Halflings do not, we can only assume that in proportion to their size, they are much stronger and healthier than humans.   If this difference is not due to magic, then it would have to be due to a body build similar to the chimpanzee which allows is stronger and more durable than humans in proportion to its size.  Not that this idea makes halflings realistic, but it at least is somewhat explanatory.
2) This is the strangest assertion in your whole point because its devoid of logic.  The problem is that statement 2 doesn't connect to statement 3 in any fashion.  It's not a logical bridge from point 1 to point 2.  A wrymling black dragon about the size of a house cat has a strength equivalent to an average human man.  Ergo what?   Halflings and dragons, being made up creatures, may have any sort of attributes we desire.   But even if we were making a comparison to a real creature here, still so what?  A 40lb caracal can jump 15' straight up from a crouch.  Why do humans not get a +20 racial jump bonus given that they are larger than a caracal?  Obviously, because being larger than a caracal doesn't necessarily make you either a better jumper or even absolutely stronger than a caracal.   I mean I feel like I'm talking with people who say, "Apples aren't oranges, ergo you can't build a doghouse out of pancakes."  How can you argue with that?
3) First, halflings don't exist, so a comparison of halflings to women is a comparison of fantasy to reality.  When comparing fantasy to reality, who knows.  With fantasy we can have anything we want.  But when you move into reality, and compare things we can compare in reality, and you ask something like "Why do women have only about 25% of the upper body strength of men", I can only answer something like 'evolution'.  When you ask, "If we tried to translate the lower strength of women into D20 terms, what would be the result?", the answer is, "A larger penalty to strength than that applied to halflings."  Asking 'why' doesn't change the facts.



> After all, elves are considerably smaller and lighter than an average human woman and they don't suffer any sort of strength penalty.  Or perhaps elves are now built like chimpanzees too.




Maybe.  Or maybe they are magical.  Once again, it's hard to know given that elves don't exist.   Had I been making the game, I probably wouldn't have treated size as an arbitrary descriptor.  However, if I was to justify elven attributes, I would say that elves +2 Dex is probably most due to the fact that they have higher strength to weight ratios, and that is actually a realistic basis for dexterity.   Likewise, -2 to Con is perhaps a fairly realistic accounting for being a smaller size (but not a whole category smaller) than humans.



> Look, what you want to do at your table is your business.  Fine.




Once again, I don't do this at my table.  I don't find a particularly good reason to force mechanical differences in strength on characters of different genders, if only because I don't have a mechanic that works with point buy as well as I would like (if using some other chargen method, probably a random one, it would be easier to come up with a workable system).  



> But, trying to pass it off as "realism" is a joke.




A lot of the reason I'm having a hard time staying out of this thread is the bizarre claim that not only should a fantasy world work in a particular manner, but that the real world works like their fantasy world.  In other words, not content with wanting to claim that for various mechanical limitations, social issues, and reasons of gameability, different genders are or ought to be built by the same rules, quite a few people are trying to assert that this actually reflects reality.  So for example, they'll claim that since the in game made up 'halfling' race only has a strength penalty of -2, that in reality women are nearly as strong as men and therefore in the game they shouldn't suffer a penalty.    

If I had a sense of humor, I'd definately be laughing.


----------



## Crazy Jerome (May 17, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> I would say that when playing a game that uses the hit point mechanic, I would not be at all concerned with simulating real-world gender differences.




It is one-handed swords weighing from 10 to 15 pounds that gets me.  

There are really two questions being explored, though:

1. Are there differences in gender that could be mechanically reproduced in an RPG, that would make sense?

2. Is any version of RAW D&D a good system for so expressing?

One can agree that there are systems that fit the first category without agreeing that any such differences make any sense in the second category.  In my case, I'm unlikely to enjoy a system where such differences being expressed would make sense, because I don't care for that much detail or fidelity to realism in my RPGs.  But those are elegance and good system design objections, tied with personal preferences--not some of the other objections raised thus far.


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## Celebrim (May 17, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> It is one-handed swords weighing from 10 to 15 pounds that gets me.




Bugs the heck out of me as well, which is why they only weigh 3-4 lbs in my equipment table.   

In fairness, the 1e DMG was explicit about the fact that encumbrance was an abstract value that included a factor that adjusted for the items bulk and that's reasonable when you are trying to ballpark carrying capacity.  Even so, this fact seems to have been forgotten over time eventually even by the designers.



> 1. Are there differences in gender that could be mechanically reproduced in an RPG, that would make sense?




It would depend on your goals.  



> Is any version of RAW D&D a good system for so expressing?




D&D sacrifices a good deal of realism for playability.  Any playable game is going to do so.  So obviously, D&D is going to have holes in its realism regardless of what you do.   Nonetheless, I hold that 'D&D doesn't have realistic rules for starvation', while true, does not constitute an objection to something like a gender based strength cap.  As long as we are talking house rules, I can easily answer such an objection with, "Ok, let's fix the rules for starvation as well."



> But those are elegance and good system design objections, tied with personal preferences--not some of the other objections raised thus far.




From a system design perspective something like a gross ability modifer similar to what racial templates use in D&D is not particularly fiddly.  If you thought it was, you'd be arguing that elves and dwarves, given that their templates are more complex than any gender template hitherto discussed, would have to go on the basis of good system design and elegance.  So, if you have an objection to gender differences in chargen, then the basis of your objection probably isn't too much detail or too much fidelity to realism.


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## El Mahdi (May 17, 2011)

Hussar said:


> The problem, in my mind, when you start down this road, is where do you stop? Ok, we reduce a human woman's carrying cap by 40%. Now, since we're positing that our female characters are smaller, how much do we reduce the weights of their equipment?
> 
> After all, the female character's armor obviously doesn't weigh as much as the male character's armor. She'd likely be using a lighter sword (being not as strong and all) and a lighter shield as well. How do we calculate this?
> 
> ...




Yeah, I understand how changing anything in a set of rules has ripple effects out to other rules. In fact I said that exact thing to Elf Witch just a few pages back.  However, for those who like to tinker with rules, we usually don't mind this kind of work (personally, I seriously enjoy it).


But that's not the point of what I'm asking. The majority reason presented in this thread _against_ such differentiation (and I believe your reason also), hasn't been a mechanical objection, but a moral/sexist based objection (with a reduced fun in gameplay as secondary).


So, in _that_ context: *Do those that oppose such differentiation, have a problem (on moral/ethical grounds) with reducing female character lifting/carrying capacities by 40%, without applying a Strength penalty or cap?  And if not, do you feel it would reduce your enjoyment/fun of playing the game with such a rules modification in effect?*  (And please try to be objective and give reasons - not just a flat _No_.)





As concerns your persistant queries of _*Why?*_

Whether you see value in extensively writing/rewriting rules, or would be willing to do that, there are people who not only will rewrite a system from the ground up, but actually enjoy doing it.  But, after over 300 posts in this thread, I think the reasons for why people want to do this, and why others don't want to do this, have already been stated extensively (as have _my_ reasons for wanting to do this).  It's comprehensive enough by simply reading through the thread.

What I don't understand is why you have such a problem accepting that there are people who play differently than you, and want different things than you from RPG's, whether you _understand_ or not?!?!

The simple fact is, there are people who do want this, and they don't necessarily want this due to some sexist bias or agenda.  Accept it or not - but continuing to entreat as to why in an increasingly desperate and strenuous manner, is starting to hint at an agenda that seems less about understanding than it is about winning.

And we all know just how futile trying to _win_ on the internet is...


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## El Mahdi (May 17, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> It is one-handed swords weighing from 10 to 15 pounds that gets me.




Brother, you and me both.



Crazy Jerome said:


> There are really two questions being explored, though:
> 
> 1. Are there differences in gender that could be mechanically reproduced in an RPG, that would make sense?




Well, _"makes sense"_ is such a subjective thing from person to person. For some, a penalty makes sense. For others a penalty doesn't make sense, but a cap does. For many, no mechanic to do this makes sense. I think there can be a mechanic that objectively makes sense, but it would be so complicated as to be unplayable. So, as with all RPG's, we're all stuck with doing what makes sense to us, within our own gaming groups, and at our own tables. Ask 100 gamers what makes sense, and you could get 100 different answers.

Objectively, I don't think that question can be answered.



Crazy Jerome said:


> 2. Is any version of RAW D&D a good system for so expressing?




That's mostly subjective also. For many, RAW D&D of any preferred edition expresses what they want more than adequately. For others, not so much (which is one reason why some want to modify the rules).



Crazy Jerome said:


> One can agree that there are systems that fit the first category without agreeing that any such differences make any sense in the second category. In my case, I'm unlikely to enjoy a system where such differences being expressed would make sense, because I don't care for that much detail or fidelity to realism in my RPGs. But those are elegance and good system design objections, tied with personal preferences--not some of the other objections raised thus far.




Exactly!


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## El Mahdi (May 17, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> "Ok, let's fix the rules for starvation as well."




Damn, now I'm hungry!

Must be time for lunch.


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## nedjer (May 17, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> I'm like a moth to the flame...




Crispy antennae. Ouch!


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## Umbran (May 17, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Yes, yes, yes.  I got that.  I've addressed it in detail several times now.  But I guess you can't use logic to argue people out of positions that they didn't reach on the basis of logic.




He seems pretty logical to me.  So, maybe you want to watch it with accusations of irrationality.



> 1) Yes, but Halflings are made up.




That made-up halfling exists in the same world as the woman with the strength penalty (she's as "made up" as the halfling).  Halflings are a comparison benchmark within the game world - this woman with a strength penalty is equivalent to a halfling in many respects.

The question is simple: does that make sense?  Does the typical image of a human woman match the typical image of a halfling for strength?  Genericize it, even: do you want human women as weak as the _weakest_ thing you typically see as a PC race in the game?  If not, then the penalty is not very sensible.  



> A lot of the reason I'm having a hard time staying out of this thread is the bizarre claim that not only should a fantasy world work in a particular manner, but that the real world works like their fantasy world.




Dude, folks need to be able to wrap their heads around the fantasy world quickly and easily, with a minimum of cognitive dissonance.  That means that, even with the existence of magic and other races, the fantasy world has to work kinda-sorta like the real one in many respects.   

Exactly where to draw the line where real and fantasy worlds diverge is not some objectively obvious thing.  It is a matter of taste.  People are not "bizarre" for having tastes that differ slightly from yours.



> So for example, they'll claim that since the in game made up 'halfling' race only has a strength penalty of -2, that in reality women are nearly as strong as men and therefore in the game they shouldn't suffer a penalty.




I think you are thoroughly mis-stating the logic there, as noted above.  

Modifications to the rules ought to be consistent with and make sense in the context of the things that already exist in the rules that aren't part of the suggested change - including halflings and half-orcs.


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## nedjer (May 17, 2011)

The logic here is that there's no need to carry discrimination over from the real world into the fantasy, or the meta-game, when RPGs present an opportunity to start from a level playing field.

If you then decide, collectively, to play in an oxygen rich world where all but a handful of breeding males are emasculated at birth  - fair enough.


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## steeldragons (May 17, 2011)

ExploderWizard said:


> Someone should have had this talk with you a long time ago.




This! <kow tows to the wisdom of EW> 

There are dragons and elves and dwarves and halflings running around the world...play as much verisimilitude/internal consistency as you want...and I, myself, enjoy a LOT of it in my games...but as a DM, I also don't want the endless headache...as Hussar points out, "where do you stop"? 

In a my fantasy world, a female (human or any other PC race) is just as capable as kicking my/your/any PC butt as any male of any race (and I have several female PCs who would love to). +Flexibility, - Strength, + Charisma (to do something to get you "off guard" in the midst of a fight) whatever...she's gonna kick my butt.

I recall some ages old tome, I forget the name, it was an "art of D&D" book or some such that pointed out (and showed in the art) that the vast majority of "female PCs" (at least as portrayed in the art of the game) prefer to play spellcasters because women are instinctively more attuned to thinking and feeling in certain ways and are drawn to "thinking feeling" character types like clerics and sorceresses...I, in my gaming experience, have never found that to be the case.

I've played with plenty of (exceptional) females (both players and male-run characters) who are quite eager to hack'n'slash or backstab their way through a game. I've also found most of the female players I've encountered do not at all feel a need to play female PCs.

Part of creating a character is creating a character you want...part of the joy of roleplay, for many, is being what you are not in real life. And why not? 

So, as someone said above, _could_ you make this kind of distinction in your (tawkin' 'bout D&D here) game? Of course you could. _Should_ you? Certainly not....Particularly with female players in the group unless you want a world of hurt...But then, some people go in for that kinda thing too. ;P

Personally, I still think the Ganders still have it all.

That is all. Carry on.
--SD


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## JamesonCourage (May 17, 2011)

This whole "where do you stop" issue is really a problem for me.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> The problem, in my mind, when you start down this road, is where do you stop? Ok, we reduce a human woman's carrying cap by 40%. Now, since we're positing that our female characters are smaller, how much do we reduce the weights of their equipment?




Does the game do that now? No? Then don't do it.

Why attempt to model gender differences in a game that doesn't already have it, then? Because that's the point of the thread.

What's the best way to go about that? Look for a broadly non-objectionable way to implement mechanical differences.

Honestly, I find it pretty hard to believe that if I sat down with four gamers (two male and two female), and I told them "when making PCs, male PCs get +1 to Climb and Swim, and female PCs get +1 Tumble, and +2 to all Endurance-based checks" that I'd get any objection. I might get questioned, but I really doubt I'd get an objection. If I did, I would suspect the person of being a little more irrational that I'd like to play with _when it comes to this specific issue._

Does the above mechanical implementation model the differences between the sexes extensively? Nope. Not at all. Does it model them adequately? Sure, why not? Past a certain point, you leave it be for playability's sake. For simplicity's sake.

Have I personally implemented any change in my game? No, I haven't. But the point of the thread was to discuss possible mechanical implementations. We're working on the premise of "we want to make this change" not "why should this change happen?"

I'm not trying to say any implementation should be the default for any game. The above suggestion wouldn't even translate to a large number of games. I'm seeing if people can rationally work on the basis of "let's see if we can make a mechanical change to the sexes that is broadly non-objectionable to prospective players." That's all.

As always, play what you like


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## billd91 (May 17, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Honestly, I find it pretty hard to believe that if I sat down with four gamers (two male and two female), and I told them "when making PCs, male PCs get +1 to Climb and Swim, and female PCs get +1 Tumble, and +2 to all Endurance-based checks" that I'd get any objection. I might get questioned, but I really doubt I'd get an objection. If I did, I would suspect the person of being a little more irrational that I'd like to play with _when it comes to this specific issue._




In this case, you've got modifiers on highly situational checks. I too would find these sorts of issues a lot less objectionable than including a modifier that's being used many times in a typical game session. Looking at these mods - the relative infrequent use of endurance-based checks balances reasonably well with the common tumble. And in most cases, tumble is probably more useful than either climb or swim, both of which are probably more useful than the endurance-based check.


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## Celebrim (May 17, 2011)

Umbran said:


> That made-up halfling exists in the same world as the woman with the strength penalty (she's as "made up" as the halfling).




And by that logic, the afore mentioned 15lb sword also exists in the same world as the halfling.  So, by that logic we can make the same 'where does it stop' argument in the other direction?  Does the setting need to bear any particular relationship to reality?

I think the answer is, "No.", but I also think that while a setting doesn't have to bear a relationship to reality in general some relationship to reality is preferred and in some cases a strong relationship to reality is definately preferred.

So, for a supers game, I might find that differentiating chargen on the basis of a gender choice to be a bad idea.  If on the other hand I was playing Jules Verne inspired 19th century steam punk, or a game set within the 30 years war, I might choose to highlight gender roles and differences.  



> Halflings are a comparison benchmark within the game world - this woman with a strength penalty is equivalent to a halfling in many respects.




Well, in the respect that they are both PC's.  Otherwise, they are two entirely different species with entirely different physical characteristics.



> The question is simple: does that make sense?




What does 'that refer to?  I don't even agree that halflings make a good comparison bench mark, so if that is what you refer to then no it doesn't make sense.  

It's like using elves as a bench mark for Constitution.  

The problem here is that the designers have fetishized their monsters so that pratically nothing in the MM, regardless of weight, size, or life style is less healthy than an elf.   An ordinary rat weighing say 3-5 lbs. is therefore more resistant to damage and a dram of poison than an elf, and this is in violation of the games own guidelines for tiny creatures.  Rather than granting our little rat disease resistance and endurance and say a 5 or 6 Constitution, they give the rat human normal constitution.  But of course to compensate they have to invent 1/4 HD as a category because otherwise hit points would be thrown off.  

Much of what is in the game was designed to be good enough for a certain purpose.   Deadlines had to be met and minor issues like the fact that elves were practically the only thing that had a constitution penalty slipped through the cracks.   If I want to rework animals into a realistic framework with characteristics that reflect there actual abilties and weaknesses, then I have to be very careful not to choose as my benchmark something that wasn't realistic in the first place.

Obviously, this doesn't matter if realism doesn't matter, and in many cases it may not.   You might not care about the relative bite strength of hyena's and cheetahs, and that's fine.  But if a game is trying to be realistic on a particular subject, arguing against that realism on the basis of the unreality of something else is a spurious argument and I believe disengenious argument.     

This disengeniousness of that argument is revealed through statements like this:



> Does the typical image of a human woman match the typical image of a halfling for strength?




How the heck should I or anyone know that?  That is a question about people's perceptions?   How should I know whether people typically percieve women as being weaker than halflings?   Won't that depend on how people percieve something that doesn't exist as well as how people percieve women?   How can I answer subjective value questions like that?  I can answer objective questions about the strength of men and women.  I can answer questions about the strength of halflings given assumptions about their strength.   But for questions like, "Does the typical image of a NFL offensive linemen match the typical image of a female chimpanzee for strength?", all I can do is shrug.

Are you really asking me what the typical image is, or are you really asking me what I think the typical image _ought_ to be?



> Genericize it, even: do you want human women as weak as the _weakest_ thing you typically see as a PC race in the game?




Again, is that supposed to be an objective question?  How does what I want really have to do with reality.  Things are the way that they are whether I want them to be that way or not.   I have to accept reality, and if I decide to let reality inform some aspect of my game then I have to accept the consequences of that.   

The subtext of your questions is that I maybe _ought not_ allow women to be percieved as 'weak', presumably because I ought not like what the percieved consequences might be.



> Dude, folks need to be able to wrap their heads around the fantasy world quickly and easily, with a minimum of cognitive dissonance.  That means that, even with the existence of magic and other races, the fantasy world has to work kinda-sorta like the real one in many respects.
> 
> Exactly where to draw the line where real and fantasy worlds diverge is not some objectively obvious thing.  It is a matter of taste.  People are not "bizarre" for having tastes that differ slightly from yours.




Back at you.  100% agreement there.   I'm not sure at all how thats intended to be rebuttle of anything I've said, because that's been the core of my position in this thread since the beginning.  

The sentence you were responding to though was about the claim that some people were mixing up there taste in fantasy worlds with reality.   I'm happy with their tastes.   In practice, they are very similar to mine.   I'm not happy with the assertion that if I allow women to potentially be percieved as physically weaker than men that I'm a sexist.   I don't believe pretending that women are physically as strong as men is rooted in a respect for women.  It's just another way of treating women as fragile creatures that have to be protected by men.  It's just another way of treating the perhaps one uniquely male virtue (punching power) as being the primary characteristic people ought to be judged on.   You don't have to be sexist to have a game that doesn't differentiate between the sexes, but by golly if you do differentiate between the sexes it doesn't mean that you are or that you've made an inherently bad decision.



> Modifications to the rules ought to be consistent with and make sense in the context of the things that already exist in the rules that aren't part of the suggested change - including halflings and half-orcs.




Which first of all persumes that having modified the rules, we won't extend that modification to removing halfings and half-orcs (both removed in my game even though I don't apply a strength penalty or cap to female characters in my game), and secondly of all presumes that there is something enherently inconsistant and nonsensical about percieving a human woman as weaker than a halfling.  How is it inconsistent?  I don't think consistant is the word you were actually looking for.   I think the unspoken word in that paragraph was distasteful.


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## Umbran (May 17, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Does the setting need to bear any particular relationship to reality?




A role playing game that really has _absolutely no relationship_ to reality, in which you cannot analogize from reality to game in any way, will not be comprehensible - characters in such a game would be "varelse".  

Players need to be able to extrapolate from reality to the game in some reasonable way to figure out how to play a role in the game.  So, I think it is reasonable to say that it has to bear some relationship to reality.  Not a _particular_ relationship, but there must be some for the game to be playable.  You can pick and choose where you match the real world, and where you don't.



> Well, in the respect that they are both PC's.  Otherwise, they are two entirely different species with entirely different physical characteristics.




Well, that's just the thing, isn't it?  As far as the game is concerned, if you give female humans a -2 to strength, they are nto *entirely* different.  In Strength, they would then be rather similar in physical characteristics.



> I don't even agree that halflings make a good comparison bench mark, so if that is what you refer to then no it doesn't make sense.




I think we may be talking past each other.

We are talking about giving female humans a -2 to strength, yes?  Then any race that also has that same modifier is a benchmark for what that means, whether you like it or not, because as far as the game rules are concerned, you're making them similar.  



> It's like using elves as a bench mark for Constitution.




No, it is like using elves as a benchmark for what -2 Con means.  If I were going to give a new race a +2 Strength, I'd look at half-orcs as a comparison, and so on.


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## pawsplay (May 18, 2011)

El Mahdi said:


> I agree completely that in the real world, Strength differences between men and women do not necessarily translate into a combat advantage or disadvantage.  I do disagree however, that realism is not all where it's at - for some it's very much where it's at.




But it's not ALL where it's at, or they wouldn't be rolling dice to simulate combats in the first place... 



> For both those that want a mechanical differentiation, and even those that don't, what would you all say to not having a Strength penalty or cap, but simply reducing lifting/carrying capacities by 40% for female characters?




If I were running a completely status quo game, I think +1 Strength for males, plus an additional +2 Strength for purposes of carrying capacity, is where it's at. I think individuals like Jackie Mitchell, the first female pro baseball pitcher, who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gerig, should make anyone cautious about assigning more than a +1 basic Strength, given the multidimensionality of Strength and the numerous factors that make it difficult to do an apples-to-apples comparison between men and women.

I think the practical social and psychological issues previously referenced, with regard to what it means to play a fantasy, as well as basic, run-of-the-mill balance concerns about some PCs getting "free points" simply based on their concepts, I think I would have to say the argument against a Strength mod is overwhleming. Even things like Olympic benchmarks include numerous confounds like self-selection, stereotype threat, and the fact that women athletes get paid less. So if you were running a moderate status quo game, say a gritty Conan-type setting or a historical WWI game centered around infantry actions, I think giving males a "half-size" worth of lifting/carrying and bull rush bonuses is probably a fair reflection. Keep in mind that games built at this level are intentionally designed to inflict a higher less of stress on the participants, with "gritty" resolution systems, often frequent PC death, and very fatal systems for dealing with large, powerful monsters. This level of status quo emulation posits, before you even roll up characters, that the players are prepared to have their PCs kicked around; on that premise, gender-based modifiers can be considered one of many hard knocks built into the scenario. PCs are not truly exceptional, but represent, unquestionably, the status quo to some extent.

In any kind of game that is more primarily a wish fulfillment, or even in an intentionally realistic game that nonetheless posits that PCs are exceptional, I think any modifier at all is a mistake. Most games have, or can easily be modded to include, all the modifiers you need to purposefully sculpt the PC you want. And you don't need rules to give Roman legionaries Str 12 and underfed Syrian slave girls Str 8 when you're statting up NPCs. This is position GURPS has held pretty consistently for years; females are shorter and weigh less, on average.


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## outsider (May 18, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Honestly, I find it pretty hard to believe that if I sat down with four gamers (two male and two female), and I told them "when making PCs, male PCs get +1 to Climb and Swim, and female PCs get +1 Tumble, and +2 to all Endurance-based checks" that I'd get any objection. I might get questioned, but I really doubt I'd get an objection. If I did, I would suspect the person of being a little more irrational that I'd like to play with _when it comes to this specific issue._




Character creation is the first thing you do in a game.  Thus, character creation is where you make your first impression on your group.  Do you want your first impression to be "The differences between men and women are a big enough deal to this guy that he made rules for them"?  Think of the message you are sending.  It suggests that gender issues are going to be a huge thing in the game, and quite possibly in non-game interactions with you as well.

There are accounts all over the internet of female gamers basically saying they don't want their gender to be a big deal, they just want to be able to game.  Rules like the ones suggested in this thread alienate those women, which is why we don't see them in published products(very often), and why it's not particularly wise for GMs to implement them as house rules either.


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## Celebrim (May 18, 2011)

> I think we may be talking past each other.




I think we must be because I'm increasingly uncertain of what you are trying to say.  You are almost quoting back to me things that I've said earlier in the thread, and I'm beginning to think that maybe you are arguing my part more effectively than I am.  I agree with almost your entire post.  



> Well, that's just the thing, isn't it?  As far as the game is concerned, if you give female humans a -2 to strength, they are not *entirely* different.  In Strength, they would then be rather similar in physical characteristics.




At one data point, yes, though that hardly draws the picture.  And to be fair I've been referring to the differences in strength between the two sexes as being closer to -4 strength, which is what prompted the whole halfling objection.  That is to say, it's the gap between male and female human strength is in reality larger than the gap the game models between halflings and humans.  Now, the gap between halflings and humans is unusually small even by the internal standards of the game, and externally such a large gap would imply halflings are pound for pound one of the strongest animals in the (real) world in their size class while comparably humans (weighing four times as much) are among the weaker animals in their size class (if not the weakest).  Being only ~5-10% less strong while weighing 1/4 as much suggests average halflings would have a vertical leap sufficient to easily slam dunk a basketball, and could probably go from stationary to the roof of your house with complete ease.  

(And yes, women are on average and at the upper extremes considerably more than 5-10% less strong than men.)

So, not so convinced about similar physical characteristics.  Size matters; a lot.  If you are interested, GULLIVER makes for very interesting reading on the subject of physics in gaming.  Also take a look at the supplement 'Beastiary: The Predators' (Bastion Press?), which is an excellent attempt at bringing some realism to D&D's numbers. 



> No, it is like using elves as a benchmark for what -2 Con means.  If I were going to give a new race a +2 Strength, I'd look at half-orcs as a comparison, and so on.




Both in my opinion make terrible benchmarks because neither are real.  Typically when I want to bench mark a system, I look at well documented very familiar animals like humans, dogs, cats, oxen, chimps and horses and work what the attributes must mean from that.  Then when I want to add a new monster or creature, I compare it to knowable benchmarks and extrapolate.  If you use elves as a benchmark for what Constitution means, what does that tell you about Constitution given that you still have nothing to compare it to because well you've chosen an unknown as your control?


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## Celebrim (May 18, 2011)

outsider said:


> There are accounts all over the internet of female gamers basically saying they don't want their gender to be a big deal, they just want to be able to game.




I understand that.  Maybe the women he knows are already confident that they will be included and valued as real people in the groups that they game with, and hense are already certain that their real gender is 'no big deal'.

And also note that some people in the thread have mentioned that the know women who feel slighted or excluded when the chargen doesn't allow them to highlight their gender as an important part of the character, suggesting for example that several respected female RPG designers and GMs have been the impetus behind introducing such differentiation.



> Think of the message you are sending.




Can't fault you for honesty.  Did you ever consider the message you are sending?


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## pawsplay (May 18, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> And also note that some people in the thread have mentioned that the know women who feel slighted or excluded when the chargen doesn't allow them to highlight their gender as an important part of the character, suggesting for example that several respected female RPG designers and GMs have been the impetus behind introducing such differentiation.




Other than games with completely random chargen, I don't know of any game that does not _allow_ you to highlight your gender as an important part of the character. And games with completely random gen don't allow you to highlight anything you prefer at all, anyway.


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## pawsplay (May 18, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Now, the gap between halflings and humans is unusually small even by the internal standards of the game, and externally such a large gap would imply halflings are pound for pound one of the strongest animals in the (real) world in their size class while comparably humans (weighing four times as much) are among the weaker animals in their size class (if not the weakest).




Where are you getting these comparisons? D&D 3e gives dogs Str 13, and specifies they weight between 20 and 50 lbs. That makes halflings less Strong than dogs.



> Being only ~5-10% less strong while weighing 1/4 as much suggests average halflings would have a vertical leap sufficient to easily slam dunk a basketball, and could probably go from stationary to the roof of your house with complete ease.




No, it doesn't. Elephants are quite strong and they are not known for their jumping capability. Boa constrictors, too.



> Both in my opinion make terrible benchmarks because neither are real.  Typically when I want to bench mark a system, I look at well documented very familiar animals like humans, dogs, cats, oxen, chimps and horses and work what the attributes must mean from that.  Then when I want to add a new monster or creature, I compare it to knowable benchmarks and extrapolate.  If you use elves as a benchmark for what Constitution means, what does that tell you about Constitution given that you still have nothing to compare it to because well you've chosen an unknown as your control?




It tells you what a -2 means. It means, "about as healthy as an elf." 

I have no idea how you would benchmark a human relative to a wild quadruped anyway. That moves us even further into unknown territory.


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## outsider (May 18, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> I understand that.  Maybe the women he knows are already confident that they will be included and valued as real people in the groups that they game with, and hense are already certain that their real gender is 'no big deal'.




Yeah, I guess that's true if you never bring anybody new into the group.  Most groups/games I've been in have tried to keep things pretty welcoming to new players though, and there's evidence in this thread(and all over the internet) that female gamers don't tend to find mechanics like this very welcoming.



Celebrim said:


> Did you ever consider the message you are sending?




I try not to, it's more fun that way.


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## Hussar (May 18, 2011)

El Mahdi said:
			
		

> The simple fact is, there are people who do want this, and they don't necessarily want this due to some sexist bias or agenda. Accept it or not - but continuing to entreat as to why in an increasingly desperate and strenuous manner, is starting to hint at an agenda that seems less about understanding than it is about winning.




Fair enough.

For me, if I'm going to make the nod to "realism" then I would go this way.  Ignore gender entirely, because there's an easier way.

Link damage bonuses to body mass.  IIRC, Villains and Vigillantes did so with a calculation that went something like this:  (weight/10+Str)/x (and I have no idea what the x was, I'm basing this off a REALLY old memory).  For D&D, I'd do the same thing.  Damage bonus=(weight/10+Str Mod)/6, round down.

There, now you have realistic damage bonuses (sort of) based on the size of the character without having to mess about trying to justify why the 300 pound orc with a 18 strength does the EXACT same damage as the 110 pound elf, just because the elf has the same strength bonus.

And, you don't really need to mess about with skills.  Sure, it might be a bit unrealistic that the female character can jump as far as the male character, but, skill points and the die roll are likely going to have a bigger impact than base strength.  Female characters are no longer getting shafted out of attack bonus because of a Str penalty - which doesn't really make a lick of sense other wise.  Sure, Conan is stronger than Red Sonja, but, is he really more accurate?

Trying to tie this to gender is a wrong approach in my mind.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 18, 2011)

outsider said:


> Yeah, I guess that's true if you never bring anybody new into the group. Most groups/games I've been in have tried to keep things pretty welcoming to new players though, and there's evidence in this thread(and all over the internet) that female gamers don't tend to find mechanics like this very welcoming.




I quit counting after I introduced 150 people to gaming.  A sizable chunk of those people are women.  My main group has been consistently about half women since the late '80s.  The vast, overwhelming majority of those players have been --- totally unconcerned with issue whatsoever.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm the only one that sat at any of those table that even considered it.  

Welcoming to a new group, for most people, is that there be basic social courtesy, friendliness, somewhat compatible play styles, etc.  If you've got that, then someone being a bit "odd" from your perspective on some slight mechanical issue is just being eccentric.  I've also felt this way in pick up games I've played at Cons, where the DM was a little more gung ho about some mechanical dodad than I thought warranted.  Not my preference, but no big deal in an otherwise fun game.

The kinds of issues aluded to by female gamers in this thread have largely not been of this minor type.  Instead, they are gross, over the top, generalization, frequently applied by people with no clue (e..g. 12 Str cap for women).  Those kind of clueless mechanical rulings typically come with lack of social graces and other kinds of problems that are going to compound the issue a hundred fold.  

I'll grant that someone scarred by such an experience could be wary of even the slightest hint of such in a game.  I have encountered players with past bad experiences that were wary--though not, as indicated above, not this particular issue.  However, since the players in our groups were not total social misfits or unkind, these were readily addressed by listening to these players and allaying their fears.  

Pretending that a minor gender difference in a system is *that* offensive is not only unfair, it is counter-productive.  It takes away from the very real sexist (and worse) activities that can quite easily slip into any group with a domineering male participant.  Those kind of people don't need mechanical differences in characters to cause trouble.


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## nedjer (May 18, 2011)

Instead of the endless opinion; how about some evidence. Happen to have half-a-dozen primary kid girls holding a Skype session in the living room. I'll ask their views. This may take me some time, as they Skype in 400 mile an hour fluent Gaelic.

The views:

"That's just dumb"
"So unfair"
"It's roleplaying don't they know that"
"Why do they have to use that one thing when they make everything else up?"
"They're mean. It's the same as when the boys don't pass at football"
"Leave them to it"


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## Celebrim (May 18, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Trying to tie this to gender is a wrong approach in my mind.




Let me say to start with that to a large extent I agree with you.  If you are going to head along the route of realism, then you are going to compute the natural encumbrance of the creature/character (that is how encumbered the creature is by its own body) based on its size and apply encumbrance modifiers on the basis of whether it has positive or negative encumbrance.  

You are then going to have some sort of table relating strength to body weight so that you can't cheat by picking a weight that is unnaturally low for the muscle mass indicated by your strength score and your weight is going to be a major mechanical attribute and not merely a fluff descriptor of your character's appearance.

Once you get to that basis where size really matters, you've covered a very large percentage of the difference between men and women.   Men, on average and at the extremes, are bigger and being bigger can carry more muscle mass and can use their mass as a weapon.  In this way BRP is more realistic than D&D because it includes size as an attribute and uses it to compute things like hit points and melee damage.

Unfortunately, if what you are intending is both a realistic system and minimal difference between the genders, this only gets you about half way.  The problem is that, especially in the upper body, men are also pound for pound stronger than women.   So you still won't end up with a system that favors women being melee brutes and be remotely realistic.

There is a saying that "God made man but Sam Colt made him equal."  This applies regardless of gender.   In the real world, women don't want to fight men in a boxing ring and its the rare woman who could defeat a atheletic male fighter in a melee.   But if someone told me there was a 14 year old girl out there with a semi-automatic .22 LR, an empty 20 oz. soda bottle, a x10 scope, and a death wish you'd better believe I'd have the cold sweats.  Being dangerous doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being able to throw a punch.  It takes only about 1 lb of force to stick a sharp knife into someone, and 10 lbs will run you through.  Even a child can do it.


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## nedjer (May 18, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Let me say to start with that to a large extent I agree with you.  If you are going to head along the route of realism, then you are going to compute the natural encumbrance of the creature/character (that is how encumbered the creature is by its own body) based on its size and apply encumbrance modifiers on the basis of whether it has positive or negative encumbrance.
> 
> You are then going to have some sort of table relating strength to body weight so that you can't cheat by picking a weight that is unnaturally low for the muscle mass indicated by your strength score and your weight is going to be a major mechanical attribute and not merely a fluff descriptor of your character's appearance.
> 
> ...




In a world where there is so little integrity, there's still enough left for your cheap attempt to dismiss the opinions of the children expressed above, with an apparently off the cuff one-liner afterthought, to require me to invite exile.

On this particular issue, IMHO you have your head so far up your ass that flossing ain't an option 

*Mod Edit:*  It seems this poster had his own head shoved in some place where he thought the rules of civility no longer applied.  Too bad.  It means no more posts for nedjer in this thread.  Carry on as if he wasn't here, 'cause he isn't.  Please keep your own heads clear, so that this doesn't happen to you.  ~Umbran


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (May 18, 2011)

I've got a question.



Celebrim said:


> You are then going to have some sort of table relating strength to body weight so that you can't cheat by picking a weight that is unnaturally low for the muscle mass indicated by your strength score and your weight is going to be a major mechanical attribute and not merely a fluff descriptor of your character's appearance.




Why is the Strength score indicative of muscle mass only?

I mean, we're dealing with characters for whom "Blessed as a babe by the god of martial exploits" or "fueled by destiny" is a perfectly respectable reason to have a high Strength score.

Are you assuming that barbarians, when raging, *actually* Hulk up?

This whole gender conversation is just so bass-ackwards.


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## Elf Witch (May 18, 2011)

I guess one of  my issues besides the others one I have listed is this so many other things in the game don't make sense and sometimes I have to remind myself it is just a game.

For example in the game I am playing right now we have dwarf who is a rogue. He can tumble and do all these graceful maneuvers like an Olympic gymnist. As someone who watches this sport I can't see someone built like dwarf being able to really do this. They way their body is made is just wrong.

Part of me would say that they should take major penalties to skills like tumble. 

But the game does not work that way the game designers sacrificed realism for more players options.

Someone had a good point about once you start fiddling with things you end up having to change a lot of other things which adds more complexity to the game. Which some people find fun. And some don't.

I played rolemaster a couple of times and it is by far my least favorite game because of the complexity and the charts it takes to resolve combat.

Anyway I don't think I will keep posting in this thread because it seems to be going around in circles.

As long as it is never made an official rule I have no issue what people do in their home games.


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## Celtavian (May 18, 2011)

*re*



pawsplay said:


> Not that I see the relevance, but I do lift weights, and I do not keep up with weight lifting as a phenomenon.




I keep pretty careful track. The difference is so extreme that top women, the very best in the world, women that do steroids and use all the same equipment as men, cannot compete against men. 

It's a moot point. The issue is so complex as to be completely irrelevant to a fantasy game. Simulating simple differences from one human being to another is extremely difficult. 



> This has been covered in painstaking detail over the course of this thread. I realize it's a long thread, but I think you might find it worthwhile to read more before you post. Just to recap:
> 
> 1) A total of about +3 effective Strength difference covers even the most generous estimates of strength differences, but is awkward to implement; as you picked up on, I maintain that only about +1 of that, at most, translates into a different Str difference. A lot of the athletic endeavors cited to show male superiority (fencing wins, tennis, running) in D&D are actually associated with _Dex_ or no ability score at all.




I would say the real world difference would be +4 to +6. A truly impactful advantage that would make it all but impossible for a trained female to beat a trained male all training being equal and level of physical superiority within the gender were taken into account. I consider both female and male adventurers to be exceptional people. Once you get to the high end of genetically superior individuals, the gap between males and females becomes glaring not only in terms of strength, but size and weight. 

Something D&D never takes into account either. If the OP were really worried about real world differences, why not show how a 6'8", 400 lb, muscled male can usually crush even a well-trained 5'8", 180 lb male. Sheer physical size and mass have been shown to be an extreme advantage even in male versus male competition.



> 2) I posted a video of a female MMA fighter taking out a credible male boxer. She demonstrated the ability not only to outscore him, but to ring him out, shove him, and escape from grapples. In terms of historical women warriors, I can recommend
> 
> this article on African all-female militia who fought the French Foreign Legion
> 
> as well as these gals




I'm not looking for rare exceptions. I already know a few. I'm more concerned with averages. On average a male military is going to be superior to a female military which is why males have been the preferred sex for warfare since the dawn of time. 



> 3) Realism is not all where it's at




Realism in a fantasy game is pretty pointless. All adventurers are exceptional people. If you want gender differences to be shown for an average society, it's easy to build in. So I don't see a point in the game system doing it.



> 4) Reality isn't balanced; in most RPGs, PCs are




I agree. Reality isn't balanced. Genetics vary greatly from individual to individual much less male to female. 

If the OP wants to simulate gender differences, he can make the average female strength lower within a given group. Not hard to do. No need to hardwire it into the system.


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## Celtavian (May 18, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Simply because this is a stronger claim than has been made previously, it bears refuting.
> 
> In long distance swimming, women quickly close the gap and compete at a close level to male athletes.
> 
> ...




Finding a few exceptions does not refute thousands of other articles I could find in general history and the modern day to show the extremes of male physical dominance. 

Male dominance is extreme. It occurred naturally due to genetic traits within males that allowed them to exert their dominance.

Once again, it is pretty simple logic. If at any point males and females were physically equal, the natural dominance of the male in nearly every human society would not have occurred. It would have been an impossibility. 

Do I really need to post thousands of articles showing how males have been physically dominant? Do you really want to try to support your conclusion that females are the physical equal of males?

I personally have never had a female equal me in strength. Not even close. I know such females exist because I've read about them in powerlifting magazines or bodybuilding magazines. But never seen one in real life. Even the women in many of those magazines are about as strong as I was naturally. 

And the men who engage in similar lifting are far, far stronger than I am. 

Male physical dominance is a provable, scientific truth. I do not understand, nor will I ever, why some men choose to ignore it to promote a disingenous idea of equality.

When you can show me a video of the top female MMA fighter going against the top male MMA fighter, then get back to me. Videos of a "credible" boxer being beaten by a woman, which may have taken a while to find since throwing the woman in with any old boxer is liable to lead to a loss is not supportive evidence.

It's more like creating a documentary based on carefully culled video and documentation to promote a certain viewpoint.

I'm done with this conversation. Not appropropriate for these boards.

I'm also in the camp where gender differences in a fantasy game are not necessary. What am I supposed to do with that? Decide how gender works for every race and species. Who wants that level of detail in a game.


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## pawsplay (May 19, 2011)

Celtavian said:


> Once again, it is pretty simple logic. If at any point males and females were physically equal, the natural dominance of the male in nearly every human society would not have occurred. It would have been an impossibility.
> 
> Do I really need to post thousands of articles showing how males have been physically dominant? Do you really want to try to support your conclusion that females are the physical equal of males?




The same logic "proved" decades ago that women had no talent for poetry.


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## pawsplay (May 19, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Fair enough.
> 
> For me, if I'm going to make the nod to "realism" then I would go this way.  Ignore gender entirely, because there's an easier way.
> 
> ...




Runequest and some of the other Chaosium games work this way.


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## Hussar (May 19, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Runequest and some of the other Chaosium games work this way.




Yeah, this is hardly a new idea.  There's all sorts of systems out there that have done this sort of thing.

While a female human and a male human of similar weights and heights and builds have a strength difference I'm not entirely convinced that it's so large that it needs to be mechanically modeled.  A 160 pound woman and a 160 pound man, both with similar levels of physical fitness aren't likely so hugely different strength wise.

Basing it on body mass has the added bonus of not being limited to any specific race or gender.  After all, a simple way to do an end run around the idea that human females get a Str limitation is simply play a half-elf female and make the character human in all ways except that it says half-elf on the top of the character sheet.

After all, half-elves are fictional beings and don't need to adhere to any sort of physiology, just like any other fictional being.


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## El Mahdi (May 19, 2011)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> I've got a question.
> 
> Why is the Strength score indicative of muscle mass only?




Because in the real world, that is what determines strength.  There are different types of muscle fibers that do different things, most specifically slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibers.  Dexterity and efficiency of a muscle is determined by both the mass of that muscle and the efficiency of it's neural connections to and within the brain.  But strength is almost purely determined by mass.  An equal amount of muscle mass/density in a man or a woman would have exactly the same strength capability (excluding skeletal structure, metabolism, etc.).  Muscle fibers do not get stronger from exercise, they develop more muscle fibers due to exercise.  Testosterone levels do not make a muscle stronger (though they can help one produce more muscle mass).  Men are typically stronger than women because of a higher average _mass and density_ of muscle.  Not because of physiological differences in the muscles themselves.



Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> I mean, we're dealing with characters for whom "Blessed as a babe by the god of martial exploits" or "fueled by destiny" is a perfectly respectable reason to have a high Strength score.




In most D&D campaigns/premises, you'd likely be correct.  But not all D&D campaigns have such premises.  Some very specifically do not have things like "Gods" or "Destiny".  Some are purposely set in a real-world environment, where allowing such premises would stand out as inappropriate or absurd.

Just as Vanilla isn't the only flavor of Ice Cream, so standard fantasy is not the only flavor of D&D.



Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> Are you assuming that barbarians, when raging, *actually* Hulk up?




Nope.  Since I prefer a real-world analogy and realism based premises in my games, I'd assume that the Barbarians Rage Ability is due either to Adrenaline or an introduced chemical substance (translation: Drugs) - just like real-world Berserkers.

If I was playing in a supers-based D&D game, then I'd find "Hulking Up" as a perfectly okay explanation.

If I was playing straight fantasy D&D; divine intervention, innate magic, or pretty much anything else will work just fine.  _When_ I play a game based on pure fantasy, I don't have a problem with this.

I have and do play in many different D&D settings, not only the ones with standard D&D assumptions.

Different strokes...your mileage may vary...etc., etc., etc.


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## pawsplay (May 19, 2011)

El Mahdi said:


> Because in the real world, that is what determines strength.




No. In the real world, muscle fiber provides motive power, but actual strength depends on pretty complex biomechanics. Otherwise, weightlifters would lift the same weight every time, which they do not, and that is the simplest strength application I can think of.


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## El Mahdi (May 19, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> No. In the real world, muscle fiber provides motive power, but actual strength depends on pretty complex biomechanics. Otherwise, weightlifters would lift the same weight every time, which they do not, and that is the simplest strength application I can think of.




Muscle mass is the biggest determining factor, the one that most objectively determines strength potential, though there are other factors (but I said that in my post). Increase muscle mass and strength will increase. Decrease muscle mass and strength will decrease. One can change the mechanical factors a bit but only through technique (you can't actually change your skeletal structure - at least not positively). One can also change the biochemical factors (metabolism, energy efficiency, etc.), but such changes are still limited by the amount of muscle present in the first place. Steroids don't even directly increase strength. They may increase the chemical efficiency of a muscle, or allow the addition of new muscle more quickly than without, but they don't actually increase the strength of a muscle fiber. There is nothing in the world that will allow a muscle to exceed it's structural limitations (adrenaline can allow one to exceed their bodies own safety limits, but if the muscles structural limitations are exceeded, the muscle will fail). Every lift is different because of all of those factors, but mass is the single biggest limit on strength potential - which is really what a D&D ability score is - Strength potential.

And that's really what we're talking about with D&D ability scores (usually) - they are a measure of potential. When making strength checks, we're making a random roll referenced to and limited by the characters strength potential in the form of a strength bonus. So, a character with a Strength bonus of +4 has a potential for a Strength check result of 5 to 24 (with a natural 1 usually being an automatic failure). So, just like the weightlifter, the D&D character isn't lifting the same weight every time (though the system does allow absolutes when it comes to carrying capacity - but I really don't want to make a strength check every time a character picks some mundane thing up - so I roll with it for ease of play). If a character uses their ability increase from level advancement on increasing strength, what they've done is increased their muscle mass.

So, you're right, mass isn't the only thing involved in strength, but it's the only variable of the equation we have any significant ability to affect, and is the biggest determining factor in strength potential.


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## pawsplay (May 20, 2011)

El Mahdi said:


> Muscle mass is the biggest determining factor, the one that most objectively determines strength potential, though there are other factors (but I said that in my post). Increase muscle mass and strength will increase.




That's simply not true. There are differences between training for power and body sculpting. While a boxer might, for instance, lift weights in order to increase strength, to actually achieve a stronger punch, the boxer needs to punch repeatedly, and integrate the muscles and support structures. Further, you simply can't talk about strength without considering motor neurons. Without balance, coordination of opposite muscle groups, and a good initiation of motions, you suffer from inefficiency. And inefficiency means less strength. Poorly coordinated motions are like a tug of war team where four people are pulling with all their might, but the fifth isn't sure which way they are supposed to pull. Because muscles must be coordinated, simply adding more muscle doesn't add more strength in a linear fashion. 

Simply having muscle mass does not mean it's distributed in areas where it's useful. A lot of the extra muscle in a man can be considered to simply be for moving the man's extra mass around, and supporting his denser bones. Some if may be just accenting secondary sexual characteristics. People who work out in order to shape their bodies do not develop in the same way as people who work to lift very large weights, or to move with explosive power.


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## JamesonCourage (May 20, 2011)

This thread has actually slid from potentially interesting to mildly amusing.


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## El Mahdi (May 20, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> That's simply not true...




You're right, and I was wrong. I did some reading about this and learned some interesting things. Muscle Strength is ultimately determined by two things, the mass of the muscle and how well the muscle works (everyone pulling together...or not). Going back to the original question that initiated this part of the thread: Why do we link Strength to Muscle Mass? I guess it's just an assumption based on what people observe. Work out, muscles get bigger, you can lift more weight, therefore more muscle equals more strength - which is true, it's just not the whole story. We don't "see" the new neurons and the increase in efficiency of muscles. I was also wrong about fast twitch and slow twitch muscles earlier. Slow twitch is more about endurance than strength. A sprinter would have a higher concentration/ratio of fast twitch muscles, just like a powerlifter. Which means that a sprinters speed is also strongly linked to Strength (not just Dexterity).

Can a person get stronger without adding more muscle mass? If they are not using the full potential of the muscle mass they already have - Yes. If they are already using their muscles at maximum efficiency - No.

Can a person get stronger by adding more muscle mass? If the muscles are also gaining the requisite neuron connections and learning to work efficiently - Yes. If they aren't also developing efficiency in the muscle - No.

I guess that's why bodybuilders can get so big, without necessarily having the same strength as a powerlifter (who may or may not be as big). They do more exercises geared toward making the muscle bigger, and less exercises meant to improve muscle efficiency. (Although they do improve muscle effieciency a bit also.) It boils down to (for the most part) Bodybuilders are concerned with shaping muscles, Powerlifters are concerned with increasing the strength of muscles.

I went over some statistics of powerlifters and bodybuilders, and found something rather interesting.

Arnold Schwarzenegger during his Mr. Olympia days, was 6' 2" and about 235 lbs. (during competition - up to 260 during training). Looking at his reported maximum lifts - he was only about an 18 or 19 Strength in D&D terms (probably about an 18 during competition, as he likely wouldn't have been at his strongest then, just his biggest and most defined - lowest body fat percentage).

Le Maosheng when he set the Clean & Jerk World Record at the 62 kg. weight category, was 5' 4" and 136 lbs. - which equates to about a 21 Strength in D&D.

We can probably assume they had body fat percntages fairly close to eachother (pictures below), or if anything Arnie had a lower percentage (cutting down to extremely low body fat in order to show muscle definition). That gives Arnie a BMI of about 30 at competition time (up to 33 during training), and Maosheng a BMI of about 23. Now I know that BMI is controversial and not necessarily very scientific, and I personally believe BMI has significant shortcomings, but that's still a very significant difference. Arnie more than likely had more muscle mass at the time he won Mr. Olympia, than Maosheng had when he broke the world record - yet Maosheng is significantly stronger than Arnie. Although we don't have exercise for exercise numbers, I'd bet that Maosheng could probably outlift Arnie in just about any exercise.









6' 2", 235 lbs. - 18 Strength_________5' 4", 136 lbs. - 21 Strength

Maybe it's just hardwired into us: Size means Strength. Apparently that's not necessarily true.


I know that the conversaton has gone a bit afield of the OP, so in an effort to bring it back (though it may be just about talked out), I updated that pdf I posted earlier with some of the interesting things I found (like above), including some pictures of female powerlifters and equivelent D&D Strengths. I also learned about and included stats on Mariusz Pudzianowski. That dude is just scary.


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## pawsplay (May 21, 2011)

El Mahdi said:


> You're right, and I was wrong. I did some reading about this and learned some interesting things.




Wow, I was putting off looking at this thread in the fear it had become extremely tedious. And instead I found this. You just made my day. Thank you! You're a good person.


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## El Mahdi (May 21, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Thank you!




Thank you also.  It's been a good conversation and thread.  I've actually gained quite a bit of perspective from it.  I hope [MENTION=89822]Jon_Dahl[/MENTION] found it provided what he was looking for also (and everybody else in the thread, even the lurkers...although I doubt a certain professor found it worthwhile...)

The realist and tinkerer in me so wants to model everything, but I'm wondering if it's worth it in this case.  The only mechanical modeling of this I feel would be fair - and if not worthwhile, at least not damaging - would be either a cap (most realistic but most negative impact), or just limit carrying capacity (mostly realistic, fairly neutral, but so insignificant as to wonder what the point is...).  I've definitely decided that a Strength penalty isn't the way to go for me - it's not realistic, and has nothing but negative attached.  That was even a key design of 4E (no class or racial penalties, just bonuses), one that I like.  I should have rememberd that.  I also need to rethink my Strength caps for races like Halflings.  Le Maoshengs accomplishment makes me realize that a 4 foot Halfling, even being light (120-130 lbs), can have very significant Strength - even 20 or 21 - and still be realistic (although they'd probably be the strongest Halfling in the World - Evar!).

Oh Well...back to the drawing board (though I do enjoy it, so...).


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