Genders - What's the difference?

[Dracorat]

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.

 

[ExploderWizard]

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.

 

[El Mahdi]

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!

 

[Gryph]

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?

 

[ThirdWizard]

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."

 

[Celebrim]

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.

 

[Winterthorn]

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.

 

[ExploderWizard]

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?

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.

 

[Umbran]

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.

 

[GreatLemur]

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.