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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 5562962" data-attributes="member: 3887">I think the approach S'mon described works best. Leave it up to the players how to model gender. This works fine in any game with an existing, robust character generation system.My group's playing Savage Worlds now, and apparently I must mention in every other post as if I were a new convert to a cult, or, perhaps an Amway salesman. SW sports an admirably complete yet compact list of advantages and disadvantages (called Edges & Hindrances) which allow for the mechanical representation of a broad range of characteristics/differences, but it's entirely up to the player which ones apply to their PC, in accordance w/a simple point-buy system.For example, my character is a 12 year-old girl/whizkid engineer in a Flash Gordon-esque milieu. I chose to give her the lowest possible starting strength and hand-to-hand fighting ability. Seemed fitting. But I could have chosen to play a very different 12 year-old girl; say Pippi Longstocking in space, and given her the highest possible strength and commensurate ass-kicking abilities, for good measure. Again, my choice.In SW, there's a Hindrance called "Young", meant for lucky child protagonists/sidekicks like Short Round in the Temple of Doom. Even though my PC is 12, the system didn't obligate me to take it. It was merely an optional mechanical descriptor... one I didn't use it since it clashed w/my concept. Instead, I choose other disadvantages; she's pursued by several would-be kidnappers and she smokes.The advantage to this approach should be clear, it accommodates a larger number of possible PC concepts. If someone wants to play an unreasonably skilled kid in a pulp sci-fi setting, so be it. Ditto a man-strong swordswoman in a pulp fantasy setting. In both cases, we've left realism far behind, as soon as we boarded that sparking, cigar-shaped rocket, and punched out the giant ape who was guarding the enormous ruby...</blockquote>

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