Genders - What's the difference?

[pawsplay]

How did you come by the differences in strength? Do you weight lift or keep up with weight lifting?

Not that I see the relevance, but I do lift weights, and I do not keep up with weight lifting as a phenomenon.

Men are nearly 40% stronger than women in the upper body. The RAW bench press record for a superheavyweight female with no shirt is around 400 lbs. For a male around 700 lbs.

This has been covered in painstaking detail over the course of this thread. I realize it's a long thread, but I think you might find it worthwhile to read more before you post. Just to recap:

1) A total of about +3 effective Strength difference covers even the most generous estimates of strength differences, but is awkward to implement; as you picked up on, I maintain that only about +1 of that, at most, translates into a different Str difference. A lot of the athletic endeavors cited to show male superiority (fencing wins, tennis, running) in D&D are actually associated with Dex or no ability score at all.

2) I posted a video of a female MMA fighter taking out a credible male boxer. She demonstrated the ability not only to outscore him, but to ring him out, shove him, and escape from grapples. In terms of historical women warriors, I can recommend

this article on African all-female militia who fought the French Foreign Legion

as well as these gals

3) Realism is not all where it's at

4) Reality isn't balanced; in most RPGs, PCs are

 

[pawsplay]

And you are suggesting constitution superiority by females. They do have pretty much equal muscular endurance, especially with the legs. They still can't compete in marathons and endurance competitions with males.

Even extraordinary female athletes like Venus and Serena Williams had trouble competing against top 200 male tennis players. Serve speed for the female is far lower for a strong female like Serena or Venus and a top 200 male.


You seem to implying that male versus female physical superiority isn't that great. But that isn't true. Males are physically superior to females by such a extraordinary margin that they can't even fairly compete against each other in physical activities. Even such activities as tennis and golf which only require moderate physical power and strength.

Simply because this is a stronger claim than has been made previously, it bears refuting.

In long distance swimming, women quickly close the gap and compete at a close level to male athletes.

Women compete, and sometimes handily defeat men, in ultra distance cycling.

Extreme mountain climbing, equestrian events, and racing.

Impromptu arm wrestling matches.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caoT3gFfVFQ"]High school wrestling.[/ame]

 

[S'mon]

A 3-point m-f STR difference is about right for real humans (contra pawsplay), and is worth keeping in mind if you need to stat out mundane NPCs, but should be ignored with PCs, who need to be balanced against each other.

 

[El Mahdi]

1) A total of about +3 effective Strength difference covers even the most generous estimates of strength differences, but is awkward to implement; as you picked up on, I maintain that only about +1 of that, at most, translates into a different Str difference. A lot of the athletic endeavors cited to show male superiority (fencing wins, tennis, running) in D&D are actually associated with Dex or no ability score at all.

2) I posted a video of a female MMA fighter taking out a credible male boxer. She demonstrated the ability not only to outscore him, but to ring him out, shove him, and escape from grapples. In terms of historical women warriors, I can recommend

this article on African all-female militia who fought the French Foreign Legion

as well as these gals

3) Realism is not all where it's at

4) Reality isn't balanced; in most RPGs, PCs are

I agree completely that in the real world, Strength differences between men and women do not necessarily translate into a combat advantage or disadvantage. I do disagree however, that realism is not all where it's at - for some it's very much where it's at.

For both those that want a mechanical differentiation, and even those that don't, what would you all say to not having a Strength penalty or cap, but simply reducing lifting/carrying capacities by 40% for female characters?

 

[Fifth Element]

I do disagree however, that realism is not all where it's at - for some it's very much where it's at.

For both those that want a mechanical differentiation, and even those that don't, what would you all say to not having a Strength penalty or cap, but simply reducing lifting/carrying capacities by 40% for female characters?

I would say that when playing a game that uses the hit point mechanic, I would not be at all concerned with simulating real-world gender differences.

 

[Hussar]

You were the one that claimed that since halflings somehow that showed that gender differences weren't realistic. You even got upset that after a page or two that no one had yet answered your assertion about the realism of no gender differences because halflings only had a -2 strength penalty. So when I try to show that your red herring is a red herring and is irrelevent, now you are going to stop taking credit for your red herring and blame me for answering your halfling challenge? That's a big switch.

Umm, what? I'm upset now? Dude, you're reading WAYY too much into things. Perhaps this persecution complex you seem to be exhibiting is coloring your perceptions.

My point is this:

1. Halfings in D&D (and gnomes too) take a -2 to strength.
2. Halfings are less than half the size of an average woman.
3. Why are human women being saddled with the same penalties as a halfling?

After all, elves are considerably smaller and lighter than an average human woman and they don't suffer any sort of strength penalty. Or perhaps elves are now built like chimpanzees too.

Look, what you want to do at your table is your business. Fine. But, trying to pass it off as "realism" is a joke.

 

[Hussar]

I agree completely that in the real world, Strength differences between men and women do not necessarily translate into a combat advantage or disadvantage. I do disagree however, that realism is not all where it's at - for some it's very much where it's at.

For both those that want a mechanical differentiation, and even those that don't, what would you all say to not having a Strength penalty or cap, but simply reducing lifting/carrying capacities by 40% for female characters?

The problem, in my mind, when you start down this road, is where do you stop? Ok, we reduce a human woman's carrying cap by 40%. Now, since we're positing that our female characters are smaller, how much do we reduce the weights of their equipment?

After all, the female character's armor obviously doesn't weigh as much as the male character's armor. She'd likely be using a lighter sword (being not as strong and all) and a lighter shield as well. How do we calculate this?

And it doesn't end there. Because, sitting next to the female human's player is the elf player who is asking why his plate mail weighs as much as the human male's suit of plate when the elf is about half the human's size.

Meanwhile the orc player is giggling because he gets this whopping big strength bonus, but all his sizes are calculated for a character that's significantly smaller than his orc.

This sort of thing simply proliferates all the way down the line. Each tweak spawns a series of new issues that need to be addressed until you wind up spending three hours calculating the weight of a dagger because you have to first calculate the weight of the user that accounts for the strength of the user.

Which of course, spawns the question of does a female character's sword do as much damage as the male character's sword. It's smaller after all. Does the female character's shield break easier than the male character's shield.

On and on and on and on.

Again, and I'll repeat this, in a largely abstract gaming system, why on earth would you want to go down this road? You'd have to rewrite the system from the ground up to account for the granularity required. And for what? So you satisfy someone's need for there to be a mechanically generated difference between male and female humans?

 

[Celebrim]

Umm, what? I'm upset now?

Suggest a better word for what prompts a person to post that people are ignoring his post? Concern? Wry amusement? I don't really care what you want to call it, the point was that the whole halfling comparison was your thing. You were the one who thought it was some sort of strong argument. If it now seems really silly, well, I always thought bring up halflings as a counter example to reality was silly.

Dude, you're reading WAYY too much into things. Perhaps this persecution complex you seem to be exhibiting is coloring your perceptions.

I haven't a clue what you are talking about. Pointing out the fact that someone else is acting in a totally irrational manner doesn't constitute me claiming to be persecuted.

My point is this:

1. Halfings in D&D (and gnomes too) take a -2 to strength.
2. Halfings are less than half the size of an average woman.
3. Why are human women being saddled with the same penalties as a halfling?

Yes, yes, yes. I got that. I've addressed it in detail several times now. But I guess you can't use logic to argue people out of positions that they didn't reach on the basis of logic.

1) Yes, but Halflings are made up. As made up creatures they can have pretty much any strength that the creator wants to assign them. As I have already stated, I also have problems with Halfling and Gnome realism (neither are allowed races in my campaign) particularly given that the two races ignore D&D's usual guidelines on stating out small sized creatures. Size has a much bigger effect in my house rules than in stock D&D. But in stock D&D small creatures normally have a -4 penalty to both STR and CON compared to medium-sized creatures (which is fairly realistic as far as it goes). Since Halflings do not, we can only assume that in proportion to their size, they are much stronger and healthier than humans. If this difference is not due to magic, then it would have to be due to a body build similar to the chimpanzee which allows is stronger and more durable than humans in proportion to its size. Not that this idea makes halflings realistic, but it at least is somewhat explanatory.
2) This is the strangest assertion in your whole point because its devoid of logic. The problem is that statement 2 doesn't connect to statement 3 in any fashion. It's not a logical bridge from point 1 to point 2. A wrymling black dragon about the size of a house cat has a strength equivalent to an average human man. Ergo what? Halflings and dragons, being made up creatures, may have any sort of attributes we desire. But even if we were making a comparison to a real creature here, still so what? A 40lb caracal can jump 15' straight up from a crouch. Why do humans not get a +20 racial jump bonus given that they are larger than a caracal? Obviously, because being larger than a caracal doesn't necessarily make you either a better jumper or even absolutely stronger than a caracal. I mean I feel like I'm talking with people who say, "Apples aren't oranges, ergo you can't build a doghouse out of pancakes." How can you argue with that?
3) First, halflings don't exist, so a comparison of halflings to women is a comparison of fantasy to reality. When comparing fantasy to reality, who knows. With fantasy we can have anything we want. But when you move into reality, and compare things we can compare in reality, and you ask something like "Why do women have only about 25% of the upper body strength of men", I can only answer something like 'evolution'. When you ask, "If we tried to translate the lower strength of women into D20 terms, what would be the result?", the answer is, "A larger penalty to strength than that applied to halflings." Asking 'why' doesn't change the facts.

After all, elves are considerably smaller and lighter than an average human woman and they don't suffer any sort of strength penalty. Or perhaps elves are now built like chimpanzees too.

Maybe. Or maybe they are magical. Once again, it's hard to know given that elves don't exist. Had I been making the game, I probably wouldn't have treated size as an arbitrary descriptor. However, if I was to justify elven attributes, I would say that elves +2 Dex is probably most due to the fact that they have higher strength to weight ratios, and that is actually a realistic basis for dexterity. Likewise, -2 to Con is perhaps a fairly realistic accounting for being a smaller size (but not a whole category smaller) than humans.

Look, what you want to do at your table is your business. Fine.

Once again, I don't do this at my table. I don't find a particularly good reason to force mechanical differences in strength on characters of different genders, if only because I don't have a mechanic that works with point buy as well as I would like (if using some other chargen method, probably a random one, it would be easier to come up with a workable system).

But, trying to pass it off as "realism" is a joke.

A lot of the reason I'm having a hard time staying out of this thread is the bizarre claim that not only should a fantasy world work in a particular manner, but that the real world works like their fantasy world. In other words, not content with wanting to claim that for various mechanical limitations, social issues, and reasons of gameability, different genders are or ought to be built by the same rules, quite a few people are trying to assert that this actually reflects reality. So for example, they'll claim that since the in game made up 'halfling' race only has a strength penalty of -2, that in reality women are nearly as strong as men and therefore in the game they shouldn't suffer a penalty.

If I had a sense of humor, I'd definately be laughing.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I would say that when playing a game that uses the hit point mechanic, I would not be at all concerned with simulating real-world gender differences.

It is one-handed swords weighing from 10 to 15 pounds that gets me.

There are really two questions being explored, though:

1. Are there differences in gender that could be mechanically reproduced in an RPG, that would make sense?

2. Is any version of RAW D&D a good system for so expressing?

One can agree that there are systems that fit the first category without agreeing that any such differences make any sense in the second category. In my case, I'm unlikely to enjoy a system where such differences being expressed would make sense, because I don't care for that much detail or fidelity to realism in my RPGs. But those are elegance and good system design objections, tied with personal preferences--not some of the other objections raised thus far.

 

[Celebrim]

It is one-handed swords weighing from 10 to 15 pounds that gets me.

Bugs the heck out of me as well, which is why they only weigh 3-4 lbs in my equipment table.

In fairness, the 1e DMG was explicit about the fact that encumbrance was an abstract value that included a factor that adjusted for the items bulk and that's reasonable when you are trying to ballpark carrying capacity. Even so, this fact seems to have been forgotten over time eventually even by the designers.

1. Are there differences in gender that could be mechanically reproduced in an RPG, that would make sense?

It would depend on your goals.

Is any version of RAW D&D a good system for so expressing?

D&D sacrifices a good deal of realism for playability. Any playable game is going to do so. So obviously, D&D is going to have holes in its realism regardless of what you do. Nonetheless, I hold that 'D&D doesn't have realistic rules for starvation', while true, does not constitute an objection to something like a gender based strength cap. As long as we are talking house rules, I can easily answer such an objection with, "Ok, let's fix the rules for starvation as well."

But those are elegance and good system design objections, tied with personal preferences--not some of the other objections raised thus far.

From a system design perspective something like a gross ability modifer similar to what racial templates use in D&D is not particularly fiddly. If you thought it was, you'd be arguing that elves and dwarves, given that their templates are more complex than any gender template hitherto discussed, would have to go on the basis of good system design and elegance. So, if you have an objection to gender differences in chargen, then the basis of your objection probably isn't too much detail or too much fidelity to realism.