Genders - What's the difference?

[Odhanan]

Just so you guys know, Professor Cirno is quoting your posts on SomethingAwful, on grognard.txt. See posts following this one (following page as well).

 

[Fifth Element]

peeing standing up.

Best feat ever.

 

[pawsplay]

Best feat ever.

Pee Standing Up [GENERAL]
Prerequisites: Male, or Dex 13+
Benefit: You are able to pee standing up. If the wind changes, you may make a Reflex save (DC 14) to immediately stop peeing, even if it is not your turn. You are immune to diseases spread by toilet seats, provided you do not need to poop, although you may still spread them yourself. Attempts to track you by toilet seat are at -10. You may pee on a tree as a move action, which does not provoke an attack of opportunity. You may don pants hastily without penalty.
Normal: You must make a ranged touch attack to hit the toilet when you pee. You may be tracked by toilet seat. Peeing on a tree is a standard action which provokes on attack of opportunity. Attempting to don pants hastily may incur penalties, depending on the complexity of your lower garments.

 

[TarionzCousin]

What if I played a half-Elf/half-Dwarf?

"Dwalfs" and/or "Erfs"? I don't believe they exist.

 

[S'mon]

In the real world, men and women differ hugely in median attributes, BUT that doesn't mean a game should necessarily impose bonuses & penalties on male & female PCs. It works for a gender-differentiated game setting like Pendragon; but in a D&D style game, if a player wants to play a female warrior, should their character be mechanically penalised? Personally I don't think so. As DM I assume that the general mass of humans and most near-humans do differ a lot by sex in median strength etc, but this doesn't mean female PCs are or should be penalised.

 

[Fifth Element]

I don't believe they exist.

Famous last words.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That's even more impressive when you factor in the massive mullet that guy had to get over the bar as well.

Note: I fully expect someone to have already made this joke, but I can't be bothered to read the rest of the thread to find out.

No the mullet is the source of his power, not a weakness.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Pee Standing Up [GENERAL]
Prerequisites: Male, or Dex 13+
Benefit: You are able to pee standing up. If the wind changes, you may make a Reflex save (DC 14) to immediately stop peeing, even if it is not your turn. You are immune to diseases spread by toilet seats, provided you do not need to poop, although you may still spread them yourself. Attempts to track you by toilet seat are at -10. You may pee on a tree as a move action, which does not provoke an attack of opportunity. You may don pants hastily without penalty.
Normal: You must make a ranged touch attack to hit the toilet when you pee. You may be tracked by toilet seat. Peeing on a tree is a standard action which provokes on attack of opportunity. Attempting to don pants hastily may incur penalties, depending on the complexity of your lower garments.

This feat needs should be accompanied Urinary Retention save after age 40 (and after surgery).

 

[Umbran]

Lots of things. The table of world record clean and jerks by weight and gender would be one of many objective examples.

Basically, you are doing the Billie Jean King comparison. The idea here is that if you can find one female who excels a man in some atheletic competition, then it proves the physical equality of the sexes.

I think if you're doing much the same with your clean and jerk comparison - that's comparing ultimate maximum potential of a small number of some types of individuals, not what generally happens in the populace.

A more proper comparison would be *randomly chosen* men and women, trained equally for the clean and jerk, for long enough that their prior lifestyles don't impact the results much. Tag on some corrections to the statistics for body size...

And you'll probably still find that men can generally lift more than women, but you'll come by that result more validly

 

[Celebrim]

I think if you're doing much the same with your clean and jerk comparison - that's comparing ultimate maximum potential of a small number of some types of individuals, not what generally happens in the populace.

That's not a valid analogy. Comparing the top man to the top women is very different than comparing the top women to a man of more ordinary ability. Why for example isn't the reverse comparison made: the top male tennis player versus the 600th best female tennis player in the world? How valid would it be to claim that men are better than women in tennis because the men's champion could beat a girl on a high school junior varsity team?

The only reasons for comparing world records rather than a broader range of data is that:

a) it's a case of like compared to like

AND

b) it's easily available and authoratative data.

I could site scientific studies about average strength gain differences of men and women who do strength training, it's just the numbers wouldn't be as easy for me to get a hold of. I'm not going to spend 12 hours digging up scientific articles for the purpose of proving my point.

The important point though is that I'm comparing 'like to like'. Comparing Serena Willaims to an office worker that doesn't play tennis is not comparing like to like. Comparing a top female MMA to a computer programmer with limited combat experience isn't a valid comparison.

Moreover, for the purposes of convincing myself, deep research isn't required. I have significant first person experience with the difference in lifting capacity, throwing distance etc. of randomly chosen men and women.

In short, for the purposes of an internet discussion, I don't consider the burden of effort to lie wholly on me. If someone wishes to overturn the intuitive notion that men are on average signfiicantly stronger than women, I believe the larger burden of proof lies with them. That they often reach for Billie Jean King mythologies where one women of outstanding ability defeats a man of much more ordinary ability is in my opinion actually evidence on my side of the point. In the case of Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs, it was the world women's tennis champion versus a semi-retired 55 year old who was hamming up the 'male chauvinist' card for the purposes of making a buck.

A more proper comparison would be *randomly chosen* men and women, trained equally for the clean and jerk, for long enough that their prior lifestyles don't impact the results much.

Studies based on the results of military basic training are one area that has been looked at for very large data sets. Suffice to say that men start out stronger than women, improve strength faster under conditioning than women, and ultimately maintain a proportional lead on women after training.

I realize that this is very 'politically incorrect' to talk about. Right now our society is steeped in the mythology of he 'kick-butt girl' who can defeat men in outright contests of strength and power, and if you point out how much of a mythology this is and the tricks used to sustain this mythology you are considered sexist. I could cite dozens of examples of this archetype from media, but notably all would be from fiction. However, basing beliefs on a lie IMO does a disservice to everyone, firstly because it sets false expectations up and secondly because it undermines the very claim of equality that its intended to support because as a basis of equality strength is a very unsound comparison.