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<blockquote data-quote="TheCosmicKid" data-source="post: 7174629" data-attributes="member: 6683613">It's a tricky situation, because the real-world limits on the male sex are harder to model and/or not particularly relevant to the sorts of activities characters tend to pursue in an adventure game. Greater caloric requirements? Somewhat lower life expectancy? They don't really balance the equation on a character sheet, for precisely the same reason they didn't balance the equation in these real-life settings we're talking about.So my stance for gritty realistic campaign settings remains: just don't go there. So there's a female PC with 18 Str. So what? There aren't any NPCs like her, and she gets the Wonder Woman treatment (go see that movie if you haven't, people), but she's a PC. She's supposed to be exceptional. This one is just even more exceptional than usual. Yeah, there may be some specific circumstances where the presence of a woman is downright implausible: &quot;You are all WWII submariners.&quot; In that case I'd simply strongly advise that the players play male characters. No need to mess with the ability score rules, just talk it over and work out a party composition that makes sense. Because even then, if somebody wanted to play some sort of Polly Oliver situation, I'd roll with it. (More than one Polly Oliver might strain credibility, though -- and besides, Pratchett already did it.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TheCosmicKid, post: 7174629, member: 6683613"] It's a tricky situation, because the real-world limits on the male sex are harder to model and/or not particularly relevant to the sorts of activities characters tend to pursue in an adventure game. Greater caloric requirements? Somewhat lower life expectancy? They don't really balance the equation on a character sheet, for precisely the same reason they didn't balance the equation in these real-life settings we're talking about. So my stance for gritty realistic campaign settings remains: just don't go there. So there's a female PC with 18 Str. So what? There aren't any NPCs like her, and she gets the Wonder Woman treatment (go see that movie if you haven't, people), but she's a PC. She's supposed to be exceptional. This one is just even more exceptional than usual. Yeah, there may be some specific circumstances where the presence of a woman is downright implausible: "You are all WWII submariners." In that case I'd simply strongly advise that the players play male characters. No need to mess with the ability score rules, just talk it over and work out a party composition that makes sense. Because even then, if somebody wanted to play some sort of Polly Oliver situation, I'd roll with it. (More than one Polly Oliver might strain credibility, though -- and besides, Pratchett already did it.) [/QUOTE]

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