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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8369832" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Here is the issue. This idea of averages and percentiles and all of that is vaguely nice but it doesn't determine anything. And the terms being bandied about are things like "biological determinism". Under a model like that, it would be considered impossible for a woman to be a better weightlifter than a man. It would be said that whatever the current men's world record is, is something that a woman could not beat, because men are stronger. Now, I don't know modern weightlifting, but I do know history. And that includes the story of Katie Sandwina, who was a circus performer and strongwoman. Really strongwoman. She would challenge the audience to try and match her lifting, a good show for back in the early 1900's. Until one show when the man who stepped forth was Eugen Sandow, internationally recognized as the strongest man in the world. And, as you guessed, she beat him. This is the fundamental difference. This is the thing that we are all going to say is obvious, but the paradigms constructed by determinism say cannot happen. Anybody can reach the top. Sure, it could be unlikely that a woman is going to beat the men's weightlifting gold. It might even be a difference that we say is insurmountable. But we can't determine what is possible, we can only determine what is likely. And, to reference back to my elephants needing a strength of 116, the game isn't designed to perfectly emulate the real world. It can't. And no matter what you do to ASIs... it will never prevent things from being occassionally weird. Like this: [MEDIA=youtube]oSynJyq2RRo:1843[/MEDIA]That d20 is always going to be a bigger determining factor than whether or not the gnome was able to get an 18 strength before 12th level... but that strength score sure does make playing that gnome easier for the person who is making attack rolls and dealing damage, and not trying to do a sociopolitical statement on the representation of strength in roleplaying games. Is the 2 ft tall gnomes as effective a barbarian as the 8 ft tall goliath? Sure, why not. An axe to jugular is deadly no matter who is swinging it, and I'd rather let people be effective than decrying the breakdown of social norms because gnomes shouldn't be effective at swinging sharp pieces of metal at people.</blockquote>

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