Is this offensive?

[Oryan77]

If it really matters, why not just choose to give your low score to Strength? Why does it need to be codified and enforced against people who don't agree with you, when you have the perfect tool, through score allocation, to do it yourself?

I'm sure there are serious roleplayers that probably do that exact thing. I wouldn't do it and I wouldn't implement additional rules based on gender (I'm a rules light kinda guy). But I can see why someone would want to implement it and I wouldn't complain if I played in his/her game.

I know people are saying that the score adjustments for races are to help give them reasons for playing that race. But that's not how I feel about it. I don't care what the ability score adjustments are. I don't usually optimize my character by choosing a race based on my ability score in order to give me a better bonus. I think of the type of character I want to be, figure out what race I'd like him to be, what class I'd like to play, and then work my ability scores into that concept and try to get the best stats I can based on my criteria.

I thought that was how the majority of roleplayers did it back in the day, but it seems like most people actually pick their race based on what will give them better ability score bonuses for their class. :\

I'd find it about as offensive as saying Half-Orcs get a penalty to intelligence for being dumber than other races.

 

[Fifth Element]

Not really. "Races" in D&D are entirely different species from each other. There's no corrollary to anything in the real world.

Humans can breed with elves, producing half-elves. Is this not similar to (for example) lions and tigers in the real world, which can interbreed to produce ligers and tigons?

Edit: Upon further reading, it seems that only female ligers and tigons are fertile, so we'll need a better example. Unless we think half-elves cannot breed with other half-elves.

 

[roguerouge]

The offensive quality is that men are the norm off of which women are measured... if you don't impose similar stuff on men, which older versions of this game didn't do.

Now if human men got -2 WIS, -2 CHA, and +2 STR, I'd at least not dismiss the person as being unreasonably nostalgic for the original editions, if I was feeling kind. Then I would consider talking about ability changes based on sex.... if they were different for every race.

(The doubled penalties are for the gamist reason that strength penalties are supposed to be unbalancing, as in the half-orc's stat adjustment.)

(And another thing: why do all these fictional races have exactly the same gender splits in representation? What, it would kill WOTC to represent their gnome women as, on average, taller and with beefier musculature than gnome men? Or how about dwarven women? At least some of them are reputed to have beards... why not have part of the appeal for dwarven men their height and impressive biceps?)

 

[Morrus]

Humans can breed with elves, producing half-elves. Is this not similar to (for example) lions and tigers in the real world, which can interbreed to produce ligers and tigons?

I obviously wasn't clear, since you appear to think that I was claiming that cross-breeding of species did not exist in the real world. I didn't mention cross-breeding, but hey ho.

Allow me to be clearer: there is no sentient non-human species in the real world capable of being offended by such generalizations. Orcs, elves, half-orcs, half-elves: none of them will be offended by ability modifiers; this is because they're fictional.

Men and women? They're real. If someone wants to play an exceptional 18 STR woman, who's to say they can't? A blanket rule giving women -2 to STR prevents that.

 

[Fifth Element]

All right, I understand you know. Didn't get that from the first reading.

 

[Set]

Odd stat modifiers offend me deeply.

What he said.

Plus, if we wanted to be all 'realistic,' women should get a +2 Con over men, to represent their physical endurance, increased longevity and overall health advantage over us three-leggers.

There was a neat Air Force study on how much better suited women were to be fighter pilots than men, and how many more G-forces they could take before blacking out. So, naturally, the geniuses in our armed forces let them pilot helicopters instead, where they have no statistical advantage or disadvantage over male pilots... Our tax dollars at work!

"Wow, Becky would be really good at this!" "Under no circumstances can we allow her to do that, then. Stan might get moody and irrational if he's consistently outflown by a chick, and we have to consider his feelings."

But to heck with realism. Elves can somehow live thousands of years despite being frail and sickly creatures that live in the freaking woods. Dwarves can see *with no light at all.* Halflings can be two feet tall, wielding knives the size of plastic sporks, and still a credible threat to grown-ups. And that woman holding the sword to the big blubbering Ogre back in the 2E Fighters book? She can totally kick your butt.

 

[Barastrondo]

I don't know about "offended," but there's something about raising the question that conjures up images of the old all-boys gaming circles where girls were strange and feared creatures because they were so different than the "rest of us." It hearkens back to an earlier, less civilized age. So, um, points for nostalgia, I guess.

 

[Rel]

If I may inject another angle on the "realism" inherent in the lack of difference between gender in game stats, I would represent that the ability scores are generally not broken down to the point where such modifiers would be meaningful anyway.

For example if we assume that women are better at picking up languages but men are better at spacial awareness then those are both a sort of intelligence. Since there is only one stat for Intelligence in the game, one that isn't broken down by linguistics and spacial awareness, then there probably shouldn't be a gender difference. Likewise the stereotype is that women are better at networking but men tend to step forward into leadership roles more readily. Both are Charisma but different brands of it. Thus, no difference again.

I suppose what I'm saying is that, yes, there may be some general differences between men and women (aside from the obvious). But the game stats don't slice the baloney that thin, which is just fine with me.

 

[Psion]

I voted option 1, but not so much offends as it is a Wrong Stereotype. I have seen female bodybuilders that can kick the tail of most people here and they would be the ones doing the adventuring.

A female with 16 strength, perfectly possible under this system, could probably kick the tails of most people here. 16 is still statistically far above average. From a simulationalist standpoint, it makes sense.

But not having it doesn't bug me either; as others have alluded to, it's a heroic game.

Yeah, and the odd stat modifier thing too. Srsly.

 

[Desdichado]

So, I ask, if D&D set men and women up like races, and gave women -2Str/+1Cha/+1Wis (to represent lower physical strength and higher linguistic/social intelligence) or, conversely, gave women no modifiers but men +2Str/-1Cha/-1 Wis, would this personally offend you?

I wouldn't be offended... but that doesn't mean I'd like it.

I don't. A lot. But I'm not offended by it.