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Author Topic: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign  (Read 19877 times)

SHARK

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #180 on: August 19, 2021, 01:46:35 PM »
His conclusions though were that the ideal melee weapon for a female warrior would be the longsword (the real two-handed version not the D&D one) since it has excellent reach (a 3-3.5’ in the blade alone vs. the maybe 2’ blade of a short sword or maybe a foot if you’re lucky with a dagger), allows the full strength from both arms to be employed and isn’t significantly heavier than one of the two much shorter blades they’d be using with the two-weapon style (a real longsword is just 2-3 lb. while a short sword like a gladius is 1.5-2 lb. or 3-4 lb. for a pair).

A naginata or glaive would be even better, for the same reasons - probably why the naginata was the standard female home defence weapon of the Japanese samurai (also great for poking guys coming through doorways).

It's against all fantasy tropes that a 2hw (longsword, polearm) needs less strength than 2wf or 1h+shield; reality is funny like that. :)

Greetings!

Very cool, S'mon! I always love the old expression--"Truth is stranger than fiction".

Your commentary reminds me of some of the things I have read concerning ancient Chinese history. The Qin, the Tang,Warlords, across thousands of years. The Chinese are historically well known as a very patriarchal society, and certainly not favourable to women in combat, "gender equality", "representation" or any of the modern insanity and nonsense.

However, I do appreciate the intriguing bits of historical honesty, and integrity provided in various Chinese reports, stories and so on. The Chinese talk about on more than one occasion, noble wives serving as rulers over a city--(their husbands were off leading armies elsewhere)--put armour on, picked up weapons, and lead their troops into combat defending the city. Such noble women were depicted as being shrewd, valiant, humble, courageous, and inspiring. In addition, there are historical commentaries where thousands of women warriors were deployed in defending fortified cities, often fighting house-to-house. The women warriors were interestingly armed with swords, spears, or bows. Lots of mass ranks of women archers firing arrows into charging invaders. Likewise with groups of women holding bristling spears, defending market squares and temples. From the sources I've read, the historians and commentators never champion sending mass units of women out into the field on campaign, nor do they embrace any kind of "Institutionalized" changes in policy, nothing like that. They clearly maintain that women soldiers are generally quite inferior and undesirable for the serious general.

However, they do note, that in defending their homes, specifically, such as a city, or fortified town, that having large groups of well-equipped, well-motivated women soldiers is better than nothing--and on such occasions, the women were fierce, passionate, and devoted, and often successfully helped in the defense of such towns and cities. Within such a context, even though the women often suffered extensive casualties as well as the brutalities of torture and rape from invaders, the women successfully fought and killed many enemy invaders, and helped to make any process of conquering a town or city bloody and difficult for the foreigner. The honest assessment seems to have been under the defensive environment, with strong motivation and decent equipment, women soldiers were in fact helpful in resisting or achieving victory, and also often proved inspiring to the men soldiers--whether the women were nobles or even simple peasant women. Having a peasant girl charge the enemy and see her fight and be hacked down by the enemy seems to have been a distinct motivator for hardened, desperate male soldiers. Or a young noble woman standing on the battlements, speaking to her soldiers, and lifting up a sword as she matches with them into the enemy at the gates. Under such contexts, women soldiers could be effective, helpful, fierce, and inspiring. The women soldiers were also noted for being especially selfless, loyal, and ruthless, even if they were not always as strong or as skilled and trained as the male soldiers. Some of the things I have read suggest that the women can be surprisingly bloodthirsty and remorseless, eager to torture, kill, and execute every enemy warrior that falls into their hands. Definitely some eye-opening stuff! ;D

I have also read that the Mongols also ensured that women were often trained in basic weapon skills--and especially using the bow, from a young age. Stronger women were apparently unusual, but also acceptable as warriors on occasion throughout the Mongol Empire. Some of the Mongol princesses and queens were famous for wearing armour and fighting in battle, and leading warriors.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
« Last Edit: August 19, 2021, 01:50:36 PM by SHARK »
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GriswaldTerrastone
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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #181 on: August 19, 2021, 03:40:44 PM »
What bothers me the most about all of this is the hypocrisy.

Say male characters are better at ANYTHING and you will be in the crosshairs for sure. Say women are better at EVERYTHING (the latest "Star Wars" movies and the abomination called modern "He-Man") and that's just fine.

Now, in all of my writings one thing remains consistent: if female characters want "equality" and to be fierce warriors then they forfeit any and all special privileges:



Finally they had to part again, but there was no sadness for one day Tywilla's father and brother would willingly reincarnate among those of an ancient and heroic Dragonoid race who would, clad in gleaming armor forged from both magic and the fires of the brightest azure stars, soar through the gulfs of space and time far more swiftly than laggard light or any supership the invaders possessed to utterly annihilate the conquerer race- absolutely no mercy whatsoever would be shown to any of them for they deserved none- and so free that sad planet and prevent any others from suffering the same fate. In time her former world would be restored and her race could once again live in peace. It would take many years but it would be done with the eager work of the former slaves, all traces of the hated conquerers forever gone except for a holiday honoring the alien liberators and the memory of those murdered during that nightmare era.


I've caught some flack for this.
I'm 55. My profile won't record this. It's only right younger members know how old I am.

S'mon

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #182 on: August 19, 2021, 07:16:40 PM »
@SHARK your description of city defence reminds of the heroic defence of Kobani by Kurdish forces that were apparently majority-female (YPJ). The Finns also found women made good snipers in the Winter War. Defensive warfare definitely supports female relative strengths.

SHARK

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #183 on: August 19, 2021, 09:38:28 PM »
@SHARK your description of city defence reminds of the heroic defence of Kobani by Kurdish forces that were apparently majority-female (YPJ). The Finns also found women made good snipers in the Winter War. Defensive warfare definitely supports female relative strengths.

Greetings!

Yes, S'mon! I also saw some videos about the YPJ! They were impressive! Their simple courage, loyalty, and determination to resist the enemy! They weren't just bluffing, either! These girls were armed to the teeth! The video I saw showed these young girls fighting, too. Snipers, setting up machine guns, firing RPG's, these girls were not just going to lay the fuck down and cry, you know?

And yes, the Finns and Russians alike seemed to be very skilled in deploying women that were eager snipers!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
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mightybrain

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #184 on: August 20, 2021, 03:30:05 AM »
In the rules, Dex for the most part, is the archery stat. We have just had the Olympics so we have up to date data on the differences between the best male and female human archers. The difference is that there is no measurable difference. Although the men's and women's events are separated, if you take the final scores of Mete Gazoz and San An, and put them head to head, it would have been a draw.

  There is a measurable difference.  I think the average draw weight of the bow for men is around 48 pounds, and for women 33 pounds.

That would be a difference in Str not in Dex, and that has not been disputed.

S'mon

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #185 on: August 20, 2021, 05:05:20 AM »
  There is a measurable difference.  I think the average draw weight of the bow for men is around 48 pounds, and for women 33 pounds.

That would be a difference in Str not in Dex, and that has not been disputed.
[/quote]

Yes, if men (or women) have any better hand-eye coordination etc, it doesn't seem to show up much in competition stats for archery & shooting.

There are legends of Scythian female archers, probably the source of the Amazon myths. Early bows were not capable of great draw weight (pace Odysseus) which is where the trope of archery as feminine or effeminate comes from - see eg Paris in the Iliad. Archery as a DEX-based stat is quite plausible if your game is set in the Ancient World, not so much if it's the more typical high-to-late Medieval setting.

Chris24601

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #186 on: August 20, 2021, 08:37:06 AM »
Yes, if men (or women) have any better hand-eye coordination etc, it doesn't seem to show up much in competition stats for archery & shooting.

There are legends of Scythian female archers, probably the source of the Amazon myths. Early bows were not capable of great draw weight (pace Odysseus) which is where the trope of archery as feminine or effeminate comes from - see eg Paris in the Iliad. Archery as a DEX-based stat is quite plausible if your game is set in the Ancient World, not so much if it's the more typical high-to-late Medieval setting.

One of the things 3e did right was making bow damage a function of Strength and allow
Bows to be “built” with different draw strengths.

That said, in a system where hitting an armored target is as much a factor of hitting around their armor* as punching through it I can see the rationale of Dex adding to damage by more deftly striking those vulnerable points.

In my own system I just allow warriors to use Strength in place of Reflexes for attacks with a bow on the rationale that a stronger warrior can hold the bow drawn a bit longer and so make last moment adjustments to his aim and the heavier draw will add to the damage dealt, just in a different way than the pinpoint precision adds to damage dealt (which is why they don’t stack).

* a longsword is NOT going to actually pierce or cave in a plate breastplate... all the period fighting manuals instead have techniques for piercing attacks vs. weak points and the occasional inverted sword using the crossguard as a hammer to the helmet. Today we think of armor almost entirely as stopping power because weapons have far outstripped armor in the arms race, but in medieval times the disparity was much closer or even reversed (especially at the high end like full plate harness with its sloped surfaces designed to cause attacks to lose energy transfer by glancing off the surface) so the idea of basing your armor off how likely it is to deflect a blow is actually not that odd.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2021, 08:40:43 AM by Chris24601 »

S'mon

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #187 on: August 20, 2021, 09:06:52 AM »
I've watched a ton of Tod's Workshop videos where he tests extremely-accurate medieval bows against  similarly accurate plate and mail armours. Nothing gets through a good breastplate, as you might expect, though those exploding 150 lb-draw longbow shafts do make for a lot of nasty shrapnel...

Conversely, mail & wooden shields do not do at all well vs English/Welsh war bows. At best, the two in conjunction might turn a lethal injury into a painful wound.

Steven Mitchell

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #188 on: August 20, 2021, 09:15:47 AM »
When building a system from the ground up, you can approach the question of who is effective with bows from different angles, and that will have indirect effects on the main topic.  Which is itself a circular way of saying that D&D as it has evolved has become a lousy place (or even lousier place) to put male/female stat adjustments, because the design is after something that doesn't support them.  It was arguably as close as it was ever going to be when it was chainmail rules in a pseudo-medieval setting where most males and females in the setting are 1 hit away from live to dead.

What I did instead for archery (and ranged weapons in general to a lesser extent) was let "Strength" add to melee and thrown damage, while ranged weapons get no corresponding boost (in part to hearken back to early D&D).  However, I also built the math of the system to support ranged weapons having a generally larger die range.  This makes ranged weapons more unpredictable--but more attractive to those with relatively low "Strength".  I haven't yet, but if I wanted to turn around and add high draw strength bows to the system (with corresponding damage and range improvements), I could do so without messing up the math of the game.  I've also set up the weapon proficiency options and class customization options such that the vast majority of characters who will manage to get really good with a longbow or a composite bow are either fighters or have used some of their customization options to pursue archery.  And thus the increased damage of those bows is already somewhat factored in with average or better strength.  So I'm getting 80%+ of the result I want in the setting with a simpler model, which is usually good enough for me. 

In terms of the main topic then, women archers are generally stronger than the average women because to be an archer the woman has pursued activities that will make her stronger--no male/female adjustments necessary.  However, if a large group of average women (or anyone generally "weaker") who aren't all that great with a bow pick them up and shoot at you, it's probably going bad for you simply on the fact that some of them are going to hit and some of those are going to roll high on that variable damage die.  Which means that a player in that position will think twice before charging in, especially if they might be very accurate for all you know.  Some of the steps to get from A to Z aren't very "realistic" or even consistent with the intent of the setting, but the end result certainly fits.

Wrath of God

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #189 on: August 20, 2021, 07:11:11 PM »
Quote
I have also read that the Mongols also ensured that women were often trained in basic weapon skills--and especially using the bow, from a young age. Stronger women were apparently unusual, but also acceptable as warriors on occasion throughout the Mongol Empire. Some of the Mongol princesses and queens were famous for wearing armour and fighting in battle, and leading warriors.

Manchu people were simmilar, their noblewomen obliged to train horseride and basic warfare. After Manchu conquered China (as their last imperial dynasty) there was some social controversy as their women started to abandon those ways for ways of Chinese women, all home, dressed, and even bound feet and it prevailed despite Manchu men opposition, and it ended with Manchu becoming almost utterly sinified to point, when only a handful of them can even speak Manchu nowadays.
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Eirikrautha

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #190 on: August 21, 2021, 04:41:47 PM »
One of the things 3e did right was making bow damage a function of Strength and allow
Bows to be “built” with different draw strengths.
Strength bows go all the way back to AD&D.  The fact that later editions (4+) don't have them is somewhat strange, considering that they have added Dex for damage...

Wntrlnd

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #191 on: September 26, 2021, 07:55:00 PM »
So this article that I came across today https://norwaytoday.info/culture/jegertroppen-norways-all-fighting-all-female-special-forces-unit/ made me think maybe there is something to those tales about viking shieldmaidens.
An all-female Special operations unit in Norway.

Granted, as the article mentions, most women can't do exactly the same things as their male counterparts can do, so they can't pass the same training for special forces that the guys do. Thus they created an "all female version" that doesn't have the same exact standards as the male version and less competition with guys.. (less sexual harassment too)

But as the article points out, they didnt create this unit because of some gender equality reason, but because there was a actual practical need for women SOF, particularly in Afghanistan where the women weren't allowed to speak to strange men (but strange women are fine, I guess)

S'mon

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #192 on: September 26, 2021, 10:50:02 PM »
So this article that I came across today https://norwaytoday.info/culture/jegertroppen-norways-all-fighting-all-female-special-forces-unit/ made me think maybe there is something to those tales about viking shieldmaidens.
An all-female Special operations unit in Norway.

I remember reading that Scandinavian average female hand grip strength is the highest in the world, higher than the lowest male average hand grip strength numbers, which were from India (I'm guessing southern India). They got some big girls up there!

Separately, I recall reading that sexual dimorphism varies by latitude, peaking around the Mediterranean latitudes, so lower in northern Europe than southern Europe. So indeed you would be more likely to see warrior women in the north.

Re this story in particular, from everything I've seen, with a sex segregated unit they are taking exactly the right approach to creating combat effective female soldiers. The phrasing of the story may be Politically Correct, but the intentions seem very practical.

Trond

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #193 on: September 27, 2021, 07:49:16 AM »
The way people talk about shieldmaidens makes me think of Athena in classical Athens; if you took just that one myth you’d jump to the conclusion that women wore arms and armor and were of higher status than actually was the case. But we actually know too much about their everyday society to draw such a conclusion.

Norse women were pretty much as you’d expect from a traditional, hard living and practical people. Women are sometimes forced by circumstances to pick up an axe and whack someone in the head, but they aren’t “supposed to”. In Gisli Sirsson Saga several murders are triggered by women’s gossip, but the women aren’t killed nor are they involved in the killing; because women aren’t considered fighters. This is a theme you see again and again when it comes to blood feuds and wars; women were not considered to be responsible for any of that, even if they actually were involved indirectly. Besides, according to Jackson Crawford, the worst thing you could have called a male Norse was “sissy” and the worst thing you could have called a Norse woman was a “whore”. Sounds familiar?

Kyle Aaron

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Re: Attributes for Female Characters in a Campaign
« Reply #194 on: September 27, 2021, 08:34:57 AM »
Sigh.
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