Genders - What's the difference?

[JamesonCourage]

A toddler with fully developed adult muscles. A more apt comparison might be to people with an acute case of dwarfism.

Also, if your D&D campaign assumes a 10 for average human Strength, then the average human can carry up to 33 lb. and remain in a light load. The average halfling (Strength of 8) would carry up to 19.5 lb. and remain in a light load. That's a little under 60% of the carrying capacity of a human.

A human with an 8 Strength could carry up to 26 lb. as a light load. That's about 79% the carry capacity of the average human.

In terms of attacks and damage, that 2 Strength equates to one modifier, so a -1 penalty to attacks and damage (unless you're using a 2h weapon, in which case it might be 2 damage). A -1 penalty on Strength-based skills (Climb, Jump, and Swim). It also gives you a -1 penalty at breaking ropes through pure strength, kicking in doors, etc. All told, not too much, though obviously important for Strength-based characters.

If you compare high-Strength characters (natural 18), the light load carry capacity for an 18 is 100 lb. For a 16, it's 76 lb. (only 76%). So, that 2 stat means a little more than the difference between an 10 and an 8 (24% difference as compared to a 21% difference), but the rest of the modifiers remain the same (-1 attack, -1/-2 damage, -1 on Str skills, -1 on Str checks). Not a huge deal, but, again, important to Strength-based characters.

Does it seem bad to implement something like a Strength difference? Not inherently. Can I see objections to it? Obviously. Would I prefer some sort of mechanical bonus to offset the penalty? Yes. Do I implement gender differences in my game (that I created)? I do not.

I can see both sides. I don't think you have to be sexist to think about this, but I understand why it's a touchy topic. It'd be even more so if people talked about racial bonuses penalties based on skin color of the human character.

It's an interesting discussion though. Keep playing what you like

 

[ThirdWizard]

A toddler with fully developed adult muscles. A more apt comparison might be to people with an acute case of dwarfism.

That's just crazy. In 4e dwarves get a Strength bonus!

 

[pawsplay]

The man is still much stronger than the woman in absolute terms, though. D&D STR is not "strength divided by weight", it's just strength.

That is correct. Which means that in D&D terms, men and women should be closer in STR. D&D does measure strength divided by weight, but usually only at the level of detail of whole creature Sizes. If you give men a half-Size level (Somewhat Powerful Build?) and applied it to lifting strength, you get the +2 modifier I suggested earlier in the thread.

 

[pawsplay]

LOL. So long as you are going to try to play psychologist with me, I might as well say that I'm arrogant enough to think it is far beyond your power to oppress me intellectually or rhetorically. I can hold my own quite well, thanks nothing for your [false] concern.

I'm glad you don't feel oppressed.

And with that statement, you follow up with a long post where you walk away from that claim as fast as you can go, until within just a few sentences you've rationalized all the way to:

No, I don't back away from that claim. I don't quite understand why you're having so much trouble understanding what I'm trying to say, but I'm trying to be patient.

Right, so everyone agrees men are stronger, just not so much stronger that it could be quantified as even a single point of difference.

No. Stop. Strawman. I said everyone agrees men are stronger. It is my assertion that it's difficult to justify an entire point of difference, much less more than that. That is what is being debated.

Do you have anything other than lifting figures, and feats that in D&D are not based on Strength, to go by? +1 to Strength means +1 to everything. That's a pretty steep claim. If you say +2, you're saying women are to men as the average male human is to Bilbo Baggins.

Once again, if you don't really care about this subject, why are you bothering to post?

I do care about discussing gender differences in general. I don't care to hear you continue to beat the dead unicorn. No one has claimed there is no difference. If you want to claim there is a large difference, you have to present some kind of credible evidence. And power lifting figures alone are simply not sufficient.

Carrying capacity in D&D is normalized for weight. Eg. Ogres and halflings. Further, power lifters are not necessarily good at swinging swords. That is a different activity. Very high numbers in hyperspecialized tasks alone is not going to cut it.

The first page or so of this thread had four or five posts with people jumping on the OP with veiled or open accusations that the whole idea was sexist and/or that anyone who held such ideas was probably racist.

I don't really think so. I think you are reading a personal attack on your attitudes where there is none. There is simply disagreement that gender differences are + worthy in most statistics in most RPGs. The fact that some people insist that they are is indicative that their prejudices may be coloring their abiliity to look at the facts, but that does not mean you personally are being called out, or if you are, that you are a sexist.

And, in that, you think I'm worried about being oppressed? I'm defending an idea I don't even implement in my own house rules, and you think I'm playing some sort of victim card? This is just another bit of, "If someone disagrees with me, it must be because there is something emotionally wrong with them." You aren't content to challenge me on anything of substance, instead you start up with a passive aggressive ad hominem attack and follow up with a bunch of logical fallacies. I don't have to quibble with your strawmen. I have already tried to answer one of your rhetorical questions as if you were honestly making it. If you aren't going to listen then, there is no reason to think you'd listen now.

I was responding to your comment that you felt stifled in expressing your opinions. Perhaps I misunderstood and you can clarify. You are the one who asked for social cover from criticism; this discussion is well within my comfort zone in scope. However, I have little patience for people who argue from behind a duck blind.

"I'm not allowed to express my opinions, which I am expressing now," is dirty pool. "People who believe in male superiority are oppressed," is just privileged garbage. Men do suffer from some discrimination, but the idea that men are the disadvantaged class in this discussion is lunacy.

So let's be honest here so that my time is worth it. Is there any evidence I could possibly present that would cause you reassess your repeatedly stated belief that the real life physical differences cannot be quantified as even a single point of difference in strength? Because if that's your faith based conviction, we shouldn't bother discussing it.

I'll be honest, the first thing I thought when I read this paragraph was, "What is the thing I can say that will most likely guarantee he will actually not bother discussing it further?"

 

[pawsplay]

One thing that this thread has brought me to realize is just how fair and reasonable the original 1e D&D implementation of gender differences was.

Ah, the good old days.

 

[pawsplay]

Constitution is usually most obviously important for making one resistant to physical trauma, an area that is more usually related to size and cross sectional area of bones, and which really doesn't give one much ability to live a long healthy life. In fact, the idea of giving women a Constitution bonus is interesting because there are many areas where it makes sense. Women do tend to do better at pain tolerance, endurance, famine resistance, and longevity. But the problem is that normally Constitution implicitly or explicitly bundles thoughs things together with being a big hefty beefcake as if they were secondary attributes of being stout. In fact, they aren't and a scrawny looking women is more likely to excell at feats of endurance than a 300lb NFL linemen, even as the linemen is far less likely to suffer broken bones after a bone jarring hit. So the basic problem here is that D&D - and practically every other RPG you can name - doesn't consider it important to distinguish between the two.

Substitute "Strength" for "Constitution" and different examples for the different tasks, and you will get closer to understanding my objection to large modifiers on D&D strength.

 

[pawsplay]

Has this actually been proven? My understanding is that the world records for men and women *are* significantly different.....the top men lifting about 45% more than the top women.

The difference is statistically significant, but what about the effect size? What happens if we compare the top 10% of women to the 50th percentile of men, for instance?

It stands to reason....in the absence of extreme training, I believe men have a much higher percentage of muscle tissue.

That's because women have breasts and butts. I.e. fat. That is one reason why they survive famines better (even giving birth in scenarios where men are dropping like flies). Relative to body weight, men do have more muscle tissue than women, but muscle as a percentage of overall body weight is the wrong measurement to look at.

 

[Celebrim]

I'll be honest, the first thing I thought when I read this paragraph was, "What is the thing I can say that will most likely guarantee he will actually not bother discussing it further?"

I guess that's a 'No' then.

No. Stop. Strawman. I said everyone agrees men are stronger. It is my assertion that it's difficult to justify an entire point of difference, much less more than that.

Strawman? You are the one who refuses to offer a definition of strength that would allow your position to be assailed. I know exactly what you are trying to say because I've presented evidence against it like three times now. You are trying to say that while everyone agrees that men are somewhat more able to lift and carry things than women, that that is not real strength but merely a small and perhaps neglible bonus to lifting capacity. But when anyone questions you about what 'real strength' is, you can provide no evidence for your assertion.

This is what I see. You have to concede lifting strength because its easily measured, even though you try to handwave even that away with comments about relative size as if that hasn't already been addressed.

But the more difficult it is to measure the strength, the more likely you are to suggest that no difference exists in that more intangible area. For example, punching power is notoriously hard to measure well, so you argue at several points that punching power between the two sexes is similar. But in fact, because the primary difference between the two sexes in terms of strength is that testosterone encourages the growth of 'fast muscle' so that men possess proportionally more dynamic power (the difficult to measure kind) than than they do static power (from slow muscle) compared to women. If anything, lifting power as a function of size is one of the areas women are most closely comparable to men than things like punching power.

When challenged on that I produced a long list of strength related areas where men excell women by large margins. These include swimming (strength based skill), jumping (strength based skill), sprint speed, and punching power (damage bonus from strength). There are very little other areas of the game that are impacted by strength. What haven't I covered?

+1 to Strength means +1 to everything.

No, +1 to Strength means +1/2 to everything. It means virtually no difference between the two in outcome. If the difference was only +1 we'd expect differences in outcome of less than 5%. Instead we see differences in outcome of at least 10-15% which suggests +2 or +3 bonuses. But a +2 or +3 bonus suggests not +2 or +3 to strength, but +4 or +6.

When I brought outcomes in jumping, swimming, and the like previously you responded as you did with lifting capacity. "Well, perhaps men have a +2 bonus to jumps."

But if men have a +2 bonus on jumps, and +2 bonus on swimming, and a +4 bonus to lifting capacity and so on and so on, what's going to be left to justify not just making it a large bonus to strength?

That's a pretty steep claim. If you say +2, you're saying women are to men as the average male human is to Bilbo Baggins.

No, I'm saying that if we believe Bilbo Baggins has only a -2 strength penalty, then women are to men as less than male humans are to halflings (and by implication, halflings must have musculatures more similar to chimpanzees than humans... which would go a long way toward explaining their fear of water). That's not a 'pretty steep claim'. Given the large differences in outcome we observe anything less than that is an unreasonable claim.

No one has claimed there is no difference. If you want to claim there is a large difference, you have to present some kind of credible evidence. And power lifting figures alone are simply not sufficient.

I have nor have I confined myself to power lifting figures. You have produced nothing credible to assert that there isn't a large difference.

The difference is statistically significant, but what about the effect size?

Already covered. Even when adjusting for size, the difference remains statistically large.

What happens if we compare the top 10% of women to the 50th percentile of men, for instance?

Then you get back to a Billie Jean King comparison. It's no more relevant than asking what happens if we compare the top 10% of men to the 50th percentile of women. The only fair comparison is to compare the 50th percentile of men to the 50th percentile of women, or the 25th percentile of men to the 25th percentile of women, or the top 1% of men to the top 1% of women. We are trying to establish whether men are stronger than women in general, something you assert 'no one contests', but you keep contesting it.

The most essential problem with your claim that there is at most a +1 Strength difference between the two sexes (and you've two or three times argued that even this is questionable), is if the difference was that small we'd see much closer to parity between the sexes in competitions that emphasized physical strength. There is often a much more than +1 strength difference between two highly competitive boxers or two highly competitive NFL football players. If the difference was only as small as +1 Strength, you'd strongly expect to find that while the best NFL linebacker out there was probably a man, there would be at least one NFL team with a fearsome women as an outside linebacker, and while the cruiser weight boxing champion was likely a man that maybe 10% of the sport was females competing on equal terms with the men. But you don't see that in real life. This suggests the differences are much closer to 'huge' than 'trivial', and the list of measurable outcomes supports that. Its only by assuming that the difference is large that not only is the best female linebacker in the country not playing for the NFL, but that she can't earn a spot amongst any of the best 50,000 or so linebackers playing at the high school level.

I was responding to your comment that you felt stifled in expressing your opinions.

I made no such comment. So who is really playing 'dirty pool' here.

 

[WizarDru]

Interesting. I think that there are several different points being addressed here, some of which may be at cross-purposes. Potentially confusing the discussion is the mingling of two separate notions as being the same one; at least, that's how it appears to me.

The first notion is that of actual, real-world biology. I think we can agree, by and large, that evolution has granted men a physical advantage in strength. This is not to imply that women can't be strong nor that man can't be weak. Merely that, all environmental factors being equal, men have a greater mass and greater capacity for physical strength/muscle-mass/what-have-you. Determining the ranges for each sex and the means isn't terribly relevant to me.

The second notion is that the game should reflect:

• Reailty
• Genre Fiction
• Movies
• Personal Anecdotal Experience

This has little connection, generally, to the first point...unless you're solely concerned with the first item AND you are determined to make sure that it applies to the dynamics of your individual group of adventurers. That is to say that you're concerned that if there are two fighters in the group, it's clear that the male fighter should have the advantage in strength if he so chooses, since he's male and that's a factor you feel the game should reflect.

My general feeling has always been that the characters in a game are exceptional. They are Big Damn Heroes and neither the mean nor reality reflects their makeup. Female characters are no more penalized for their sex than their sexual orientation (unless it's a story point and one that the player is comfortable with). We are playing a GAME. To me, this means that there's no reason to penalize a particular character choice: I want my wife, my friend's wife, my friend's girlfriend, my wife's friend or that girl we've known since college to ALL enjoy themselves and not worry about an implied penalty based on the sex of their character. And since I have male players who have played female characters, it's even doubly true that I don't want to enforce penalties that offer no benefit back to us as a group. Some groups may find some enjoyment from these rules....I have never played with one of those groups, though.

My wife wants to play a hero who wields a mighty hammer. She is the chosen of a diety. She wears armor forged by the ancients. She wears a necklace fashioned from powerful magics. She has a blood legacy that connects her to the ancient spirits of a mystical castle. She lives in a fantastic medieval European-based society that is almost totally egalitarian. I don't really see why allowing her to have the same strength as any male character is any more of a stretch than that, honestly.

The question also arises as a follow-on: why doesn't it bother you that such things apply to elves and dragonborn and so forth? Well, you know. There simply isn't the same equivalence, in my book. Psychologically, there is a very real difference between a female player choosing a female character and being told that she will never be able to be as a good a character at class 'X' and telling a female player that her walking, talking dragonwoman is slower but tougher than that elf over there. We players live in a world where Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering fission, but Lisa Meitner was not. The level of abstraction between playing a half-stone giant and playing a different human female are sizable and gender-based modifiers carry with them social implications that fantastic races do not.

My thinking has been that such arbitrary assignments gain you little in terms of actual play rewards, but carry with them the potential for exclusion, perceived insult and unneeded debate. I'm sure there are some groups that don't mind this or even encourage it. To them I say "more power to you". But I've also note that I've had a non-zero number of female players who found the notion distasteful or misogynistic and a zero number of male players who felt it was something they cared about it. That made the decision an easy one to make. Given that I've had female players in my gaming circles constantly since the early 1980s, I haven't found a reason to change that policy. YMMV.

 

[Darwinism]

The man is still much stronger than the woman in absolute terms, though. D&D STR is not "strength divided by weight", it's just strength.

D&D strength is not 'just' strength; like the other stats it's a crazy amalgamation of concepts are linked to a single stat even though if you're going for ~realism~ there's no way you should accept that.

And proportionate strength matters plenty. Or are you going to argue that dwarves should be penalized, too? They're smaller than humans. Size is what really matters, right? And, because of that, everyone who's larger than humans should have strength bonuses that are in line with the penalty you give a woman for being slightly smaller than a man.

I'd really like to know who you think would be more effective in combat, too. The one who can barely move due to overdeveloped muscles or the one who can move freely. The point here is that pure physical mass doesn't mean better. There's a definite point at which becoming 'stronger' actually makes you worse at anything but picking up.

Basically D&D strength is just an arbitrary abstraction to inform you how awesome your character is. Like the other stats.