In response to your post, barsoomcore, I think you're missing some of my points so I'll clarify:
You'll recall that in my first two posts I did not in any way attack anyone's intellect or sanity nor did I make any generalizations that went beyond "the majority of people I've gamed with" -- so I'm a little bemused by your ad hominem attacks (which I'm not bothering to quote). I explained my house rule; I suggested that the men I have dealt with who are committed to playing women have generally been motivated either by a psychological need I felt uncomfortable meeting or by a desire to exploit certain opportunties.
However, what's done is done. Now I'll adjust to your tone.
"Respond more positively" -- that's great. Just what does that mean, exactly? Okay, I know. You're saying that if she suggests something, he's more likely to believe her because she's a pretty girl. That's complete nonsense. It's nonsense because even if you accept the notion that men are more likely to believe pretty girls
Wrong. Men are more likely to do what attractive women want. Here are the Charisma-based skills I'm talking about: perform, diplomacy, gather information and bluff. Only one of these is about belief: bluff. Even so, I would argue that men will want to believe something an attractive woman says to them.
WHAT?! Most people are male? Where did all the women go? Are they hiding because they can't find players to play them? Are they ashamed of all these great bonuses they get? This is great, really. Great stuff.
What I stated was that most NPCs in bronze-age and medieval fantasy worlds are male. Not most people. Most NPCs. For example, there are more male priests than female priests, more male armourers than female armourers, more male soldiers than female soldiers, more male alchemists than female alchemists. NPCs are a subset of people. An NPC is defined as a person one encounters in the course of adventuring. In fantasy campaigns, males are typically in gender roles which situate them closer to the adventurers.
Perhaps you run an exciting campaign about the machiavelian machinations of the wool carters's guild or the dog eat dog world of wet nursing. I, however, go for more conventional subject matter.
Really, you ought to be charging admission for this -- this is great material. Take it on the road, add some juggling, you've got a heck of an act. Ducks! I'm speechless.
Let's clarify. Ducks are a species in which the males have more prominent ornamental physical characteristics than the females. Humans are a species in which the females have more prominent ornamental physical characteristics than males. Other mammals have retracting breasts; humans females evolved with non-retracting breasts for the primary purpose of prominently displaying secondary sexual characteristics.
And you interpret "positive response" to mean "bonus to Charisma checks". Uh-huh. And the ONLY factor you consider is sexual attraction. Obsess much?
So, can I assume that you believe the mainstream of academic work in biology, communications, anthropology, sociology, paleontology, etc. is wrong? Do I really have to lock you in a dark room and make you watch that Human Animal series on PBS?
Of course, sexual attraction is not the only factor in human relations; however, I'm baffled that because you've discovered it's not the only factor that you've therefore concluded it isn't a factor at all.
But, I'm intrigued, based on your understanding of human behaviour, why is it that there are so many more female models than male models? Why is it that magazine advertizing, whether to a male or female audience vastly favours depiction of women over men? How do you account for this? What do you see going on in night clubs?
The reason I ask is that however much gender differentiation there is in 21st century Western society, it pales in comparison to the gender differentiation in the eras in which fantasy games are set. Medievals society circumscribed where women could go, what they could do, how they could dress, etc. because medievals believed that men could not resist female sexuality. Medieval European laws of gender relations were not much different from modern Islamic fundamentalism. It is in this medieval world that most D&D is situated -- based on a literary genre stemming from medieval romances like Parzifal in which the hero rapes a woman the beginning of the narrative, not to demonstrate some kind of depravity but rather to illustrate his innocence.
I don't think I'm pronoucing a great heresy here to suggest that men respond differently to women than women do to men or than men do to other men. On this basis, a female character with Charisma of 14 is going, in an isolated interaction, to have a more powerful influence on a man than a man with a Charisma of 14 would on either a man or a woman. If we accept that a 10 represents an average Charisma and therefore that a 14 is a 40% above average Charisma, we can reasonably conclude that a woman will benefit more from a Charisma of 14 than a man would.
Actually, in D&D, Charisma effects are not the slightest bit affected by the gender of either participant. It's YOUR house rule, buddy, it's NOT D&D.
I must have hit a nerve. Nobody ever calls me buddy. Yes, I understand a difference between my house rule and D&D as a whole but I think you'll find that most people develop house rules to compensate for deficiencies they perceive in the general rule scheme.
But hey -- it's just my house rule. All I'm attempting to do is that I have adopted this rule for intellectually-grounded reasons with which you may disagree but which, despite your attempts at mockery, are based on an understanding of biology, history and literary genre.
