D&D 4E Racial Intolerance Chart in 4E.

[Kintara]

It would be fitting. Gender refers to grammatical elements. Any other use is too post-modern to be taken seriously.

Hah!

 

[Fifth Element]

Slightly? Hardly. The Men's Powerlifting ranks (for squat) are measured at 900 lbs and 1,100 lbs. The Women's competition tops out at 600 lbs. That's a 183% difference. There are guys who bench 600 lbs.

Sexual dimorphism is relative. The point is that in some animals, the males bear no resemblance whatsoever to the females, so that if you didn't know better you would swear they were completely different species. It's a difference of far more than 183%, especially when that 183% refers only to a type of physical strength.

Male and female humans are far more similar than they are different, compared to most other animals. So yes, the sexual dimorphism of our species is slight. Because slight is a relative term, not an absolute one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism Check out the illustration of the male and female Triplewart seadevil. That's some serious sexual dimorphism.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Sexual dimorphism is relative. The point is that in some animals, the males bear no resemblance whatsoever to the females, so that if you didn't know better you would swear they were completely different species. It's a difference of far more than 183%, especially when that 183% refers only to a type of physical strength.

Male and female humans are far more similar than they are different, compared to most other animals. So yes, the sexual dimorphism of our species is slight. Because slight is a relative term, not an absolute one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism Check out the illustration of the male and female Triplewart seadevil. That's some serious sexual dimorphism.

Are any of your players got a Triplewart seadevil PC?

 

[Kintara]

Are any of your players got a Triplewart seadevil PC?

No, but it's fun to talk about them.

Anyway, I wouldn't like a house rule that affected women like that. I like the idea of a strength-based fighter being a woman, and I don't care if she'd be some sort of muscle savant or freak. I wouldn't quit a game because of it, but I would definitely grate under it.

 

[KrazyHades]

There is virtually no overlap in upper-body strength between men and women. For example, being able to bench-press 105 lbs puts a woman in the 95th percentile of women. That's the 10th percentile for men.

We're not nearly as sexually dimorphic as gorillas, but we have clear physical differences between the sexes.

Not that sexually dimorphic? Due to a simple difference in the hormones exposed to early in life we have different sexual organs. Because of a few hormones (whose creation is dictated by the X or Y chromosome), some people can have children and others can piss while standing. And there are noticeable differences in the brain and in sensory ability as well. Men tend to have better-developed spacial-comprehension areas in the brain, whereas women tend to have better language areas, for example.

We, like all mammals, are VERY sexually dimorphic, but I don't think that this should make it harder to play a female fighter or a male charisma-based rogue in DnD.

 

[pawsplay]

900 lbs versus 600 lbs is only a difference of 33%. Or 50% if you use women as the norm.

Human upper body muscle mass is about 50% more than females. Lower body strength is much closer, within 10%. Swinging a mace involves a lot more than bulk upper body strength. In fact, since Str in D&D mostly relates to fast movement, it's doubtful that sheer muscle mass makes a large difference.

The thing muscle mass most clearly relates to is carrying capacity, which involves the whole body. The measurable difference would be much lower than 50%. Plus, carrying things for a distance involves endurance, which women outperform men on by some measures. This also happens to be one of the most minor things Str is used for in D&D (and in fact, Size is considered more important than a specific Str score).

Str is used to hit in melee, damage, breaking things, Climb, Jump, Swim, and grappling. Of those, I'd say that grappling would probably be the biggest difference. Even then, I've known plenty of women who can hold their own in grappling.

Unless D&D starts placing a much larger emphasis on baseball or bench pressing than in previous editions, I would be extremely dubious toward any Str modifier for men versus women.

 

[pawsplay]

And there are noticeable differences in the brain and in sensory ability as well. Men tend to have better-developed spacial-comprehension areas in the brain, whereas women tend to have better language areas, for example.

Significance does not equal importance (and I will dispute significance, but not in this thread). You simply can not tell whether someone is a man or a woman by looking at their brain scan. Also, "spacial-comprehension area of the brain" is gobbledy gook, almost any task is going to be distributed, and there are extremely few tasks, outside laboratory conditions, that involve only one mental skill.

So what you are saying is true, if by "noticeable" you mean "detectable through very finicky statistical analysis by specialists, with results not being totally accepted within the field," I'll agree.

Imagine, for instance, I were measuring too battleships. Let's say I placed one dried pea on one ship and measured the change in mass. With sufficiently sensitive instruments, I could demonstrate a very significant change in mass. But the change would still be small. Significance does not equal importance.

Any supposed gender differences in various mental skills are so dwarfed by individual variables and other factors as to be worthless from a systematic standpoint. Just as an example, men and women get the same average IQ on IQ tests.

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

My sexual dimorphism question was completely different (or rather - it was intended to be completely different) than the sex/gender differences on statistics.

What I'm trying to say is that we have some fantastic races being introduced. If we use the dragonborn as an example, would it not be at least intriguing to have significant physical differences in the same race? In effect, it'd give us two new races instead of one. I know we're dropping favored classes, but perhaps female dragonborn would be much more adept at <insert any class here> while males are more suited to <insert class here>.

For example, perhaps female dragonborn "grow" thicker hides (as egg defenders) and benefit from natural armor, whereas males grow wings or what-not.

 

[Fifth Element]

Are any of your players got a Triplewart seadevil PC?

No. My point was that sexual dimorphism is relative. What seems to be "very" dimorphic in one species (humans) pales in comparison to the dimorphism in other species. Since you objected to the use of the word "slight", a discussion of that word's context was appropriate.

Compared to many other species, the sexual dimorphism in humans is reasonably called "slight". That was my point.

 

[Kintara]

Not that sexually dimorphic? Due to a simple difference in the hormones exposed to early in life we have different sexual organs. Because of a few hormones (whose creation is dictated by the X or Y chromosome), some people can have children and others can piss while standing. And there are noticeable differences in the brain and in sensory ability as well. Men tend to have better-developed spacial-comprehension areas in the brain, whereas women tend to have better language areas, for example.

We, like all mammals, are VERY sexually dimorphic, but I don't think that this should make it harder to play a female fighter or a male charisma-based rogue in DnD.

Well, but LOTS of complex animals are sexually dimorphic. The other living things work by budding or division or some such thing. Of the animals, the human differences are relatively unremarkable. That's not precisely the same thing as saying that men and women are basically the same (though I personally place a lot of weight on social influence).