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

[mmadsen]

Human upper body muscle mass is about 50% more than females. Lower body strength is much closer, within 10%.

Female upper-body strength is roughly 40 percent of male upper-body strength, and female lower-body strength is roughly 70 percent of male lower-body strength.

It's only when you adjust for the fact that males are much larger that male and female lower-body strength become comparable -- and a huge rift in upper-body strength remains.

There's a reason why athletes take synthetic male hormones (anabolic-androgenic steroids) and not female hormones ("the pill") to improve strength and power.

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.

Sheer muscle mass makes a tremendous difference in swinging a heavy implement.

The thing muscle mass most clearly relates to is carrying capacity, which involves the whole body.

Absolute muscle mass correlates extremely strongly with the amount an individual can lift, the distance an individual can throw a heavy object (like a discus or spear, rather than a baseball), and the "power" an individual can put into a hit (especially with an implement like a club or bat).

Relative muscle mass, or muscle per unit of body weight, correlates well with sprinting speed, jumping distance, climbing ability, etc. Males have greater relative upper-body muscle mass and strength than women. They can typically perform chin-ups, for instance. Even in lower-body mass, where relative strength is much closer, men run faster, jump farther, etc.

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.

It takes an extreme skill advantage to overcome the strength disadvantage most women face 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.

Are you honestly trying to pretend that strength is not a major factor in fighting? With swords and armor?

 

[Fifth Element]

Are you honestly trying to pretend that strength is not a major factor in fighting? With swords and armor?

We're pretending to be elves and wizards. Why can't we pretend this as well?

 

[Patlin]

In Asprin's Myth Adventure series, males from Trollia are trolls and females are trollops. That example excepted, sexual dimorphism in fantasy tends to be unfun. I'd rather have players choosing gender based on what they want to play than based on what gives stat advantages. In fact, I'd go a step farther and say that I generally prefer players to choose their own gender for their character, as the opposite tends to lead to a great deal of aggravation in choosing the right pronoun.

(Play by post adventures excepted. In play by post, I often don't even know the gender of the other players.)

 

[Dire Bare]

Your school career ... in academia?

Take umbrage over a grammatical disagreement if you wish.

So your argument is that the terms "gender" and "sex" are interchangeable . . . amongst the uneducated and ignorant? I'll buy that!

In all seriousness, there is an important distinction in the terms "gender" and "sex" that go beyond simple academic study, as has been pointed out my many educated posters on this thread.

Are you implying that transgendered and transexual folks can be described simply as male or female, in both physiological and sociocultural terms? Try it.

And what does prudishness have to do with academic study of gender and sex? If anything, academics are the least prudish people on the planet! It's the prudes out there that try to ignore that a person can have a different gender than his or her sex.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So your argument is that the terms "gender" and "sex" are interchangeable . . . amongst the uneducated and ignorant? I'll buy that!

In all seriousness, there is an important distinction in the terms "gender" and "sex" that go beyond simple academic study, as has been pointed out my many educated posters on this thread.

Disagree with me without insulting me, please.

And what does prudishness have to do with academic study of gender and sex?

Nothing. Go re-read my original post. Unless someone posting here is a 19th century scholar -- in which case, kudos -- no one here, and no one alive, is being called a prude. The second time I used the term, there was this smilie thing because it was meant as a joke.

 

[Kintara]

So your argument is that the terms "gender" and "sex" are interchangeable . . . amongst the uneducated and ignorant? I'll buy that!

In all seriousness, there is an important distinction in the terms "gender" and "sex" that go beyond simple academic study, as has been pointed out my many educated posters on this thread.

Well, but you could reverse that and say that the difference only extends so far out of academia. It's needlessly pedantic to try to apply the academic standard unless you're in a particular environment, or if you need to make the distinction for some specific reason. And that's not because the academic standard is too good for the "masses." I'd only break out the specialized language when it's necessary to draw that particular distinction. Otherwise, I'm not going to point it out as being "wrong," because I don't believe that.

Edit: Anyway, I think I've probably helped spur this conversation along long enough.

 

[Counterspin]

Adventurers are abnormal. Why make rules to force them to be on the normal scale of humanity? I want mechanical parity, not some foolishness drawn from a textbook.

 

[drothgery]

Any chance we see a return to dare-I-say-it realistic modifiers based upon a race's gender?

No. But I'd argue that at the level of granualarity D&D works at, modifiers to stats (most notably Str) based on sex aren't realistic. Given that a halfling only gets a -2 Str and a half-orc only gets a +2, there's not much room to fit a human male/human female split in.

 

[pawsplay]

Female upper-body strength is roughly 40 percent of male upper-body strength, and female lower-body strength is roughly 70 percent of male lower-body strength.

It's only when you adjust for the fact that males are much larger that male and female lower-body strength become comparable -- and a huge rift in upper-body strength remains.

I don't know where you get your numbers.

There's a reason why athletes take synthetic male hormones (anabolic-androgenic steroids) and not female hormones ("the pill") to improve strength and power.

Actually, females produce testosterone naturally. Calling it a "male" hormone is inaccurate, and labeling a synthetic hormone with a sex is just preposterous. What sex is aspirin?

Sheer muscle mass makes a tremendous difference in swinging a heavy implement.
Absolute muscle mass correlates extremely strongly with the amount an individual can lift, the distance an individual can throw a heavy object (like a discus or spear, rather than a baseball), and the "power" an individual can put into a hit (especially with an implement like a club or bat).

Have you ever heard of the difference between slow muscle or fast muscle? Or the importance of muscle density in athletics, versus bulk in bodybuilding?

Relative muscle mass, or muscle per unit of body weight, correlates well with sprinting speed, jumping distance, climbing ability, etc. Males have greater relative upper-body muscle mass and strength than women. They can typically perform chin-ups, for instance. Even in lower-body mass, where relative strength is much closer, men run faster, jump farther, etc.

I just checked, and the world long jump record for men hovers under 9m for men, 8m for women. Aside from being a fairly small difference (compared to, say, one of those women competing against me), taking into account the fact that men are usually taller makes this concept even more suspect.

As for running speed, men and women are within a hair's breadth difference. 6.39 for men versus 6.92 for women in the 60m sprint, the shortest sprinting event.

It takes an extreme skill advantage to overcome the strength disadvantage most women face in grappling.

I really doubt it. I knew a friend of mine, 5'3", that was a wildcat. Admittedly, she was something of an athlete, but I don't think she suffered for her sex.

Are you honestly trying to pretend that strength is not a major factor in fighting? With swords and armor?

No, I'm saying your concept of strength is simplistic and mistaken.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

When questions come up with my distaff players, I refer their delicate little faces to the October 1976 issue of The Dragon.