D&D 5E (2014) 5e's new gender policy - is it attracting new players?

[seebs]

That's been a moderately accurate predictor for me in other lines of work; if I see a woman working as a programmer, I usually assume that she is substantially better than her job title or other apparent status cues would indicate.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Perhaps....I suppose as a general rule of thumb, it doesn't hurt to think of it like that. I think it's a little different when you're talking about soldiers or fighters, though.

A crappy programmer can get rehired elsewhere. A crappy fighter is likely dead.

 

[seebs]

Perhaps....I suppose as a general rule of thumb, it doesn't hurt to think of it like that. I think it's a little different when you're talking about soldiers or fighters, though.

A crappy programmer can get rehired elsewhere. A crappy fighter is likely dead.

Yeah. But there's a lot of bias against women in programming, so anyone who's still around is usually pretty good. I have worked with a lot of incompetent men, and roughly zero incompetent women, in programming.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yeah. But there's a lot of bias against women in programming, so anyone who's still around is usually pretty good. I have worked with a lot of incompetent men, and roughly zero incompetent women, in programming.

I'm sure you're right...I'm not in the field, so I have no idea really.

In my field, I work with both genders pretty equally, and I find the idiot ratios to be pretty equal. But there's nothing about my job that favors either gender, really.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yeah. It would be statistically unlikely that, at any given time, the Absolute Best Fighter In The World was female. There might not be very many in the very very top percentiles.

But there's nothing even a little unrealistic about a skilled woman being in the top 5%, easily, which is good enough to get you to "travelling adventurer".



I am aware of this. However, that doesn't mean that the advantage is anywhere near as significant as the advantages of being more skilled. Furthermore, there's a ton of overlap, which means that while you might find that the very strongest people are disproportionately male, there are women out there who are stronger than 99% of men.



In general, yes. But if one of them is more skilled, skill will matter more.

And the question isn't "are there women who can consistently beat equally skilled men who are stronger", but "are there women who are stronger than most or nearly-all men" (yes) or "are there women who are more skilled than most or nearly-all men" (also yes).

You don't have to be the best in the world to win a fight, just better than the people you are actually currently fighting.



I don't think you are understanding the claim I'm making, which is a fairly unexceptional claim.

Look, men are on average taller than women, right? But that doesn't mean there are no women who are taller than 95% of men. There aren't very many of them, but they certainly exist. And it turns out that the overwhelming majority of the people you encounter aren't consistently exceptional across the board. So an exceptionally strong woman will in fact be stronger than most of the men she meets.

The claim I'm arguing against is that it is implausible to imagine that there could be even one woman who is strong enough and fast enough to be an exceptional warrior, better than the overwhelming majority of men. And I'm arguing against it because it's ridiculous, and contrary to observed history.

I'm not arguing that, in a fair world, with humans basically biologically identical to our species, that over 49% of warriors would be female. I'm just arguing that there's nothing innately implausible about the notion that an exceptionally skilled and strong woman would be able to beat most male fighters. After all, she's exceptional, they're by definition not.

It's getting hard to follow this. You seem to want to say 'it shouldn't be impossible for a woman to be in the top tier of fighters,' which isn't objectionable at all -- unlikely, but not objectionable. But you then try to argue this down into a general case, and it just fails as a general case. All you have to do is look at the world today, especially in sports, and you see a clear divide between the competitive levels of men's leagues and women's leagues. It's present in boxing (which has men's and women's leagues), soccer (ditto), UFC (ditto), football, basketball, wrestling, etc. The list is so universal that it doesn't need to go to exhaustion -- in every case where strength is important, there is a massive difference between the best women and even the middle tier men (not average, middle tier in that sport). Your best example of a woman competing at the same level as men is fencing, which underscores this divide instead of arguing against it -- fencing doesn't require strength past a certain baseline point which is within the normal athlete range for both men and women. There, women can often reach parity because it's skill on skill. In every other competition, though, it's skill+strength+size. Recognizing your argument that skill could be high enough to overcome lesser skill but superior strength and size is true, people without the necessary strength and size are almost never able to reach the level of competition where you can actually learn the skill to succeed -- thereby making the road even harder if you can't get the skill without the strength and size.

Now, before anger creeps in on me being sexist, this is really only important in those areas where strength and size are critical indicators of success -- like hand-to-hand combat. Women made excellent ranged combatants based solely on skill (upper body strength is still a factor, but less of one unless you're lining up your shortbow women's company against English longbowmen at a range favorable to the longbows). They also excel as modern fighter pilots, where, again, the necessary strength for the job is within the usual range for women athletes.

Now, can Rhonda Roussey kick my pathetic, winded by two flights of stairs, ass? You betcha. Even though I stand almost a foot taller than her, it won't be helpful in the least when she lets go on me. Can she stand against any of the male UFC fighters in her weight class? No. That's why she likes to take any opportunity to train with the men because she's at such a disadvantage she learns things that are useful.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Top level female fighters are not stronger than the average man, especially in the upper body.

OK, I think we can just ignore everything this guy says now.

 

[devincutler]

Sarcasm aside, history has taught us that white people have spent an awfully long time doing an awfully large collection of bad stuff awfully effectively, and that maybe with chattel slavery, multiple cases of genocide and the oppression of most of the globe in our comparatively recent rear view mirror, a good dose of humility might be in order.

Just a thought.

Apparently someone is unfamiliar with the history of China, Mongolia, Japan, India, Egypt, the Middle East, and Africa. Human beings of all sorts have pretty much been bastards throughout history.

 

[devincutler]

ItNow, before anger creeps in on me being sexist, this is really only important in those areas where strength and size are critical indicators of success -- like hand-to-hand combat. Women made excellent ranged combatants based solely on skill (upper body strength is still a factor, but less of one unless you're lining up your shortbow women's company against English longbowmen at a range favorable to the longbows). They also excel as modern fighter pilots, where, again, the necessary strength for the job is within the usual range for women athletes.

Which then begs the question why are sports like shooting, archery, and bowling still divided into men's and women's competitions?

 

[IlluminatedSeraph]

Apparently someone is unfamiliar with the history of China, Mongolia, Japan, India, Egypt, the Middle East, and Africa. Human beings of all sorts have pretty much been bastards throughout history.

I've replied to this line of derailing once already at some length, so I'll just repeat that I am in fact familiar with the history you're talking about. It doesn't change the fact that European colonialism is uniquely nasty in scope, ugliness and effect, and that there is no good faith argument to be made otherwise.

 

[IlluminatedSeraph]

Which then begs the question why are sports like shooting, archery, and bowling still divided into men's and women's competitions?

Ingrained sexism. Next question?