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

[Sadras]

For myself it is not about what is fair for either sex.

I think the main focus for the designer (who intends to include sexual dimorphism in chargen) should be 'balance' (i.e. attractive) and growing the hobby (i.e. by not offending the playerbase).

When someone decides they wish to play a gnome character:
(a) They truly desire to play a gnome; and/or
(b) The reason for selecting the gnome race is due to particular statistical benefits over other races. Different but not inferior.

Same with female and male characters - the choice should be made interesting not fair but balanced which allows for differences. This could be the default or the variant with the other option being no change between male/female characters. I don't believe anyone on this thread is arguing against that.

 

[Pauln6]

Holy crap, what did I start (by mentioning drow)

The Drow personality is influenced more by spiders than by anti-feminism, although other monster ecologies probably have Tolkien to thank for their sexism. I recall when building many a humanoid lair that females do not fight and that female giants count as the next giant class down the pecking order.

For my part, I'm happy for my PCS to live in a sexist, racist quasi-medieval setting. This isn't Star Trek. The key is to create interesting women within that framework. The difference between LotR and GoT I suppose.

With or without stat caps, my enjoyment of D&D has remained the same. I can recall one female elf in the eighties whose strength got bumped down a point but apart from that, I never had any problems. I had far more difficulties with 4e min maxing which interfered with my mental image of what I wanted my character to be if that did not chime with class, race, and powers.

 

[Sadras]

I had far more difficulties with 4e min maxing which interfered with my mental image of what I wanted my character to be if that did not chime with class, race, and powers.

Yeah, I can relate to this. I have never been a min/maxer and this 'hurt' me when playing 4e. I felt my character was significantly worse off for not min/maxing my prime ablities. I imagined the game to function similar to earlier editions - but it did not. It also didn't help that I had terrible DM's (the only time) during that roleplaying time of my life.

 

[Pauln6]

Ooh speaking of GoT. Can anyone imagine a woman as strong as the Mountain? I can, but likely due to some magical McGuffin. I have more difficultly imagining the Mountain with 18 dexterity. If that's allowed, I think I can suspend disbelief for the ladies. I'm still ambivalent over race though.

 

[Shasarak]

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?

Is it because having a matriarchy is not very realistic?

 

[Coroc]

Is it because having a matriarchy is not very realistic?

You are wrong. Stone age cultures seem to have been matriarchal quite often e.g. In hunter and gatherer societies it is not unusual to have matriarchat. Only later on when people became farmers, when everyone got his own woman, and not only the leader of the hunting group would have all the women (his subordinates only behind the bush but that is another topic), only then Patriarchat became more common.

 

[Shasarak]

You are wrong. Stone age cultures seem to have been matriarchal quite often e.g. In hunter and gatherer societies it is not unusual to have matriarchat. Only later on when people became farmers, when everyone got his own woman, and not only the leader of the hunting group would have all the women (his subordinates only behind the bush but that is another topic), only then Patriarchat became more common.

So then I guess it is having a matriarchy that has advanced beyond the Stone Age that is not realistic.

 

[Coroc]

So then I guess it is having a matriarchy that has advanced beyond the Stone Age that is not realistic.

If you are referring to drow in specific, it is like some poster above already mentioned to mirror the behaviour of many spiders (and some other insects) were males are only used for reproduction and maybe eaten/killed after the act.

If you mean RL then it depends upon knowledge in a specific society. Part of the matriarchy was that women knew how to make new life, men could not connect the act of procreation with the children, also there were no things like couples in hunter gatherer societies, women giving sex in return for a share of the hunt and as a welcome.
Men were also endangered much more to die when hunting, so the oldest and wisest member of a tribe was usually a woman.
If the matriarchy turned into some form of cult/religion then those habits could be eventually carried over into more modern times, for a while at least.

 

[Lylandra]

nah that's not true. We still have areas in the world where matriarchal structures exist. But many of those which existed previously have been forcefully patriarchized by our (often colonial) overlords in the past. Or simply the government.

Trust me, I've had a fair share of history and "common knowledge" corrected during my uni years

And again: FANTASY. WORLD. FANTASY. RACE.

 

[Coroc]

nah that's not true. We still have areas in the world where matriarchal structures exist. But many of those which existed previously have been forcefully patriarchized by our (often colonial) overlords in the past. Or simply the government.

Trust me, I've had a fair share of history and "common knowledge" corrected during my uni years

And again: FANTASY. WORLD. FANTASY. RACE.

Yes I agree please lets put that thread on the rails again, and discuss racial ability modifiers instead of gender dependant. It is a RPG and it is about make believe and it is easy to make believe that a woman can be as strong intelligent or whatever as a man of the same FANTASY RACE, it is more difficult to do that with orcs and halflings.´My personal approach is a bit like: yea this Halfling got 20 Str and he hits real hard for a Halfling but its 20 Halfling strength so to be a bit more abstract in terms of what it really means. A strength contest between Halfling and orc would still be carried out using the numbers as if the 20 Halfling strength are equal to the 20 orc strength including the outcome, but again that are only numbers in a random generator, the character with the lower str might succeed in some str based challenge while the Hercules fails due to bad luck on the dice, see it like that- If your make believe does not work because of such, just find alternative explanations for the things which actually happen at your table.