Genders - What's the difference?

[nedjer]

Instead of the endless opinion; how about some evidence. Happen to have half-a-dozen primary kid girls holding a Skype session in the living room. I'll ask their views. This may take me some time, as they Skype in 400 mile an hour fluent Gaelic.

The views:

"That's just dumb"
"So unfair"
"It's roleplaying don't they know that"
"Why do they have to use that one thing when they make everything else up?"
"They're mean. It's the same as when the boys don't pass at football"
"Leave them to it"

 

[Celebrim]

Trying to tie this to gender is a wrong approach in my mind.

Let me say to start with that to a large extent I agree with you. If you are going to head along the route of realism, then you are going to compute the natural encumbrance of the creature/character (that is how encumbered the creature is by its own body) based on its size and apply encumbrance modifiers on the basis of whether it has positive or negative encumbrance.

You are then going to have some sort of table relating strength to body weight so that you can't cheat by picking a weight that is unnaturally low for the muscle mass indicated by your strength score and your weight is going to be a major mechanical attribute and not merely a fluff descriptor of your character's appearance.

Once you get to that basis where size really matters, you've covered a very large percentage of the difference between men and women. Men, on average and at the extremes, are bigger and being bigger can carry more muscle mass and can use their mass as a weapon. In this way BRP is more realistic than D&D because it includes size as an attribute and uses it to compute things like hit points and melee damage.

Unfortunately, if what you are intending is both a realistic system and minimal difference between the genders, this only gets you about half way. The problem is that, especially in the upper body, men are also pound for pound stronger than women. So you still won't end up with a system that favors women being melee brutes and be remotely realistic.

There is a saying that "God made man but Sam Colt made him equal." This applies regardless of gender. In the real world, women don't want to fight men in a boxing ring and its the rare woman who could defeat a atheletic male fighter in a melee. But if someone told me there was a 14 year old girl out there with a semi-automatic .22 LR, an empty 20 oz. soda bottle, a x10 scope, and a death wish you'd better believe I'd have the cold sweats. Being dangerous doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being able to throw a punch. It takes only about 1 lb of force to stick a sharp knife into someone, and 10 lbs will run you through. Even a child can do it.

 

[nedjer]

Let me say to start with that to a large extent I agree with you. If you are going to head along the route of realism, then you are going to compute the natural encumbrance of the creature/character (that is how encumbered the creature is by its own body) based on its size and apply encumbrance modifiers on the basis of whether it has positive or negative encumbrance.

You are then going to have some sort of table relating strength to body weight so that you can't cheat by picking a weight that is unnaturally low for the muscle mass indicated by your strength score and your weight is going to be a major mechanical attribute and not merely a fluff descriptor of your character's appearance.

Once you get to that basis where size really matters, you've covered a very large percentage of the difference between men and women. Men, on average and at the extremes, are bigger and being bigger can carry more muscle mass and can use their mass as a weapon. In this way BRP is more realistic than D&D because it includes size as an attribute and uses it to compute things like hit points and melee damage.

Unfortunately, if what you are intending is both a realistic system and minimal difference between the genders, this only gets you about half way. The problem is that, especially in the upper body, men are also pound for pound stronger than women. So you still won't end up with a system that favors women being melee brutes and be remotely realistic.

There is a saying that "God made man but Sam Colt made him equal." This applies regardless of gender. In the real world, women don't want to fight men in a boxing ring and its the rare woman who could defeat a atheletic male fighter in a melee. But if someone told me there was a 14 year old girl out there with a semi-automatic .22 LR, an empty 20 oz. soda bottle, a x10 scope, and a death wish you'd better believe I'd have the cold sweats. Being dangerous doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being able to throw a punch. It takes only about 1 lb of force to stick a sharp knife into someone, and 10 lbs will run you through. Even a child can do it.

In a world where there is so little integrity, there's still enough left for your cheap attempt to dismiss the opinions of the children expressed above, with an apparently off the cuff one-liner afterthought, to require me to invite exile.

On this particular issue, IMHO you have your head so far up your ass that flossing ain't an option

Mod Edit: It seems this poster had his own head shoved in some place where he thought the rules of civility no longer applied. Too bad. It means no more posts for nedjer in this thread. Carry on as if he wasn't here, 'cause he isn't. Please keep your own heads clear, so that this doesn't happen to you. ~Umbran

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I've got a question.

You are then going to have some sort of table relating strength to body weight so that you can't cheat by picking a weight that is unnaturally low for the muscle mass indicated by your strength score and your weight is going to be a major mechanical attribute and not merely a fluff descriptor of your character's appearance.

Why is the Strength score indicative of muscle mass only?

I mean, we're dealing with characters for whom "Blessed as a babe by the god of martial exploits" or "fueled by destiny" is a perfectly respectable reason to have a high Strength score.

Are you assuming that barbarians, when raging, *actually* Hulk up?

This whole gender conversation is just so bass-ackwards.

 

[Elf Witch]

I guess one of my issues besides the others one I have listed is this so many other things in the game don't make sense and sometimes I have to remind myself it is just a game.

For example in the game I am playing right now we have dwarf who is a rogue. He can tumble and do all these graceful maneuvers like an Olympic gymnist. As someone who watches this sport I can't see someone built like dwarf being able to really do this. They way their body is made is just wrong.

Part of me would say that they should take major penalties to skills like tumble.

But the game does not work that way the game designers sacrificed realism for more players options.

Someone had a good point about once you start fiddling with things you end up having to change a lot of other things which adds more complexity to the game. Which some people find fun. And some don't.

I played rolemaster a couple of times and it is by far my least favorite game because of the complexity and the charts it takes to resolve combat.

Anyway I don't think I will keep posting in this thread because it seems to be going around in circles.

As long as it is never made an official rule I have no issue what people do in their home games.

 

[Celtavian]

re

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

I keep pretty careful track. The difference is so extreme that top women, the very best in the world, women that do steroids and use all the same equipment as men, cannot compete against men.

It's a moot point. The issue is so complex as to be completely irrelevant to a fantasy game. Simulating simple differences from one human being to another is extremely difficult.

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.

I would say the real world difference would be +4 to +6. A truly impactful advantage that would make it all but impossible for a trained female to beat a trained male all training being equal and level of physical superiority within the gender were taken into account. I consider both female and male adventurers to be exceptional people. Once you get to the high end of genetically superior individuals, the gap between males and females becomes glaring not only in terms of strength, but size and weight.

Something D&D never takes into account either. If the OP were really worried about real world differences, why not show how a 6'8", 400 lb, muscled male can usually crush even a well-trained 5'8", 180 lb male. Sheer physical size and mass have been shown to be an extreme advantage even in male versus male competition.

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

I'm not looking for rare exceptions. I already know a few. I'm more concerned with averages. On average a male military is going to be superior to a female military which is why males have been the preferred sex for warfare since the dawn of time.

3) Realism is not all where it's at

Realism in a fantasy game is pretty pointless. All adventurers are exceptional people. If you want gender differences to be shown for an average society, it's easy to build in. So I don't see a point in the game system doing it.

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

I agree. Reality isn't balanced. Genetics vary greatly from individual to individual much less male to female.

If the OP wants to simulate gender differences, he can make the average female strength lower within a given group. Not hard to do. No need to hardwire it into the system.

 

[Celtavian]

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.

High school wrestling.

Finding a few exceptions does not refute thousands of other articles I could find in general history and the modern day to show the extremes of male physical dominance.

Male dominance is extreme. It occurred naturally due to genetic traits within males that allowed them to exert their dominance.

Once again, it is pretty simple logic. If at any point males and females were physically equal, the natural dominance of the male in nearly every human society would not have occurred. It would have been an impossibility.

Do I really need to post thousands of articles showing how males have been physically dominant? Do you really want to try to support your conclusion that females are the physical equal of males?

I personally have never had a female equal me in strength. Not even close. I know such females exist because I've read about them in powerlifting magazines or bodybuilding magazines. But never seen one in real life. Even the women in many of those magazines are about as strong as I was naturally.

And the men who engage in similar lifting are far, far stronger than I am.

Male physical dominance is a provable, scientific truth. I do not understand, nor will I ever, why some men choose to ignore it to promote a disingenous idea of equality.

When you can show me a video of the top female MMA fighter going against the top male MMA fighter, then get back to me. Videos of a "credible" boxer being beaten by a woman, which may have taken a while to find since throwing the woman in with any old boxer is liable to lead to a loss is not supportive evidence.

It's more like creating a documentary based on carefully culled video and documentation to promote a certain viewpoint.

I'm done with this conversation. Not appropropriate for these boards.

I'm also in the camp where gender differences in a fantasy game are not necessary. What am I supposed to do with that? Decide how gender works for every race and species. Who wants that level of detail in a game.

 

[pawsplay]

Once again, it is pretty simple logic. If at any point males and females were physically equal, the natural dominance of the male in nearly every human society would not have occurred. It would have been an impossibility.

Do I really need to post thousands of articles showing how males have been physically dominant? Do you really want to try to support your conclusion that females are the physical equal of males?

The same logic "proved" decades ago that women had no talent for poetry.

 

[pawsplay]

Fair enough.

For me, if I'm going to make the nod to "realism" then I would go this way. Ignore gender entirely, because there's an easier way.

Link damage bonuses to body mass. IIRC, Villains and Vigillantes did so with a calculation that went something like this: (weight/10+Str)/x (and I have no idea what the x was, I'm basing this off a REALLY old memory). For D&D, I'd do the same thing. Damage bonus=(weight/10+Str Mod)/6, round down.

There, now you have realistic damage bonuses (sort of) based on the size of the character without having to mess about trying to justify why the 300 pound orc with a 18 strength does the EXACT same damage as the 110 pound elf, just because the elf has the same strength bonus.

And, you don't really need to mess about with skills. Sure, it might be a bit unrealistic that the female character can jump as far as the male character, but, skill points and the die roll are likely going to have a bigger impact than base strength. Female characters are no longer getting shafted out of attack bonus because of a Str penalty - which doesn't really make a lick of sense other wise. Sure, Conan is stronger than Red Sonja, but, is he really more accurate?

Trying to tie this to gender is a wrong approach in my mind.

Runequest and some of the other Chaosium games work this way.

 

[Hussar]

Runequest and some of the other Chaosium games work this way.

Yeah, this is hardly a new idea. There's all sorts of systems out there that have done this sort of thing.

While a female human and a male human of similar weights and heights and builds have a strength difference I'm not entirely convinced that it's so large that it needs to be mechanically modeled. A 160 pound woman and a 160 pound man, both with similar levels of physical fitness aren't likely so hugely different strength wise.

Basing it on body mass has the added bonus of not being limited to any specific race or gender. After all, a simple way to do an end run around the idea that human females get a Str limitation is simply play a half-elf female and make the character human in all ways except that it says half-elf on the top of the character sheet.

After all, half-elves are fictional beings and don't need to adhere to any sort of physiology, just like any other fictional being.