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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 5556242" data-attributes="member: 151">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: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Reailty</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Genre Fiction</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Movies</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Personal Anecdotal Experience</li> </ul>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.</blockquote>

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