D&D 5E Do you miss attribute minimums/maximums?

[MoonSong]

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] let me explain how this is rife with peril. In fiction when there is a lone female character, it is quite easy to see -feel, it is unconscious- this one Smurfette as an statement about all women. In a rulebook, when the book explicitly says women get to have less strength, gut feeling just reads "in this game women are not allowed to be strong, these guys think all women are weak". It doesn't matter if the game designer doesn't think like that, or if you never plan to play a woman with high strength, the gut feeling is just a giant red flag. And that kind of red flag doesn't fly nowadays, at least not if you want young women and girls to pick this game.
At least with videogames this isn't that apparent unless you are a diehard that knows all the gears behind the screen. Even then, games like Pokemon have corrected this stuff over the years. (It used to be that male pokemon where better and more likely to be shinny, nowadays that is no issue)

(BTW. About 'Other' as a verb, I don't remember how I first used it, but nobody had corrected me before so I thought it was fine)

 

[Satyrn]

(BTW. About 'Other' as a verb, I don't remember how I first used it, but nobody had corrected me before so I thought it was fine)[/COLOR][/B]

It is fine.

It's not really a verb, but it's perfectly fine casual English to use nouns as a verb.

 

[Obryn]

"Othering" is a real verb, as is "to other."

As expected, it means more or less, "treating people as intrinsically different from yourself."

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

 

[MoonSong]

Ok, back to the other half of the topic. I do miss racial penalties, they made humans stand out a little more and helped me to get low scores where they counted, almost at-will. I fell in love with elves and gnomes thanks to them. Nowadays, elves feel just meh to me.

 

[Lanefan]

It doesn't matter if my wife isn't as strong as I am, if she wants to play a strong, hammer-wielding paladin, ...

I misread this at first and thought it said "...if she wants to play a strong, human-wielding paladin...", which would be awesome!

 

[Azzy]

Yeah, no.... I don't miss them, and I felt that they never added anything positive to the game. In fact, I go so far as to say that I think they're pretty daft. Fortunately, they no longer exist in D&D, nor in most other RPGs.

 

[MoonSong]

It is fine.

It's not really a verb, but it's perfectly fine casual English to use nouns as a verb.

"Othering" is a real verb, as is "to other."

As expected, it means more or less, "treating people as intrinsically different from yourself."

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

Yay!!! New word!! Won a level in bard!

 

[Lylandra]

So... maybe we can cut this discussion a bit shorter and ask the people who might share the RL gender of fictional female characters how *they* feel about such attribute adjustments.

I know both [MENTION=6689464]MoonSong[/MENTION] and I are not too fond of them. Is there any woman in this thread who does miss gandered adjustments or who wouldn't mind if their GM wanted to apply them?

Because... really... it doesn't feel so well when you are being talked about as if some guy knew better what it feels like to be a woman.

For "Strong capable fighter women": No, they don't intimidate me at all. I love them. As I love every Elizabeth Bennet or Sailor Moon or Mary Crawley or Twilight Sparkle. If anything, then the available female role models have increased a lot in both number and variety over the last years. The stereotypical "Strong independant woman" has been accompanied by many more feminine or otherwise diverse heroines who succeed using a multitude of different approaches. And that's great! Because that opens up the possible male role models (and power fantasies?) as well. Just like I like my D&D to be not about combat encounters first and foremost (those who know me know I'm a diplomat and creative thinker who does get badass once she's forced to fight), but about a variety of possible solutions to a given problem.

Also, drow. Yeah. Why is painting the *sole* matriarchy of black-skinned people as inherently backstabbingly evil and chaotic and misandric a problem....? Any guesses?

 

[MechaPilot]

So... maybe we can cut this discussion a bit shorter and ask the people who might share the RL gender of fictional female characters how *they* feel about such attribute adjustments.

I know both [MENTION=6689464]MoonSong[/MENTION] and I are not too fond of them.

I'm also a woman, and I'm also not fond of sex-based adjustments.

 

[Arilyn]

I'm also a woman, and I'm also not fond of sex-based adjustments.

Another woman here, and I agree we don't need them. Lylandra's post is spot on. I appreciate both Elizabeth Bennett and Buffy.

Also, in 5e, you can't improve your non light weapon skill except with Str. You also NEED Str. to play a barbarian, so this is definitely penalizing female barbarians.

No modern game is going to impose Str. penalties on female characters, as others on this post have pointed out. Time to put this to rest!